ObamaCare: you ain't seen nothin' yet.

• Author: Orient, Jane M.
• Position: Health Insurance - Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act

Now that Republicans have control of Congress, they possibly could keep their promise to repeal ObamaCare --except for two immediate obstacles. One, of course, is the threat of the presidential veto. Another is the already apparent willingness of craven politicians to surrender preemptively.

Once a government benefit is given, it becomes politically suicidal to take it back--at least in a way that people can see. There are likely 1,000,000 or more Americans who are reveling in "having health care for the first time in their lives"--or so the Administration's messaging would have us believe.

People are not yet onto the difference between having an insurance card and getting prompt medical attention. It may be years before a new beneficiary develops a serious illness and finds out that his policy is worthless, but he will know immediately if his subsidy is taken away, and the plan demands several hundred dollars every month-- and the media will be on it instantly.

Lots of articulate and influential people are making out well: navigators, consultants, administrators, insurance plans, and some doctors and hospitals. They do not want to lose their benefits, either. Every dollar that the government takes from a taxpayer is income to somebody but, as the costs start to be felt, and certain sweeteners expire, the question may well be not "Can ObamaCare be repealed?", but "Can it be implemented?"

"Fannie Med" is beginning to implode. One taxpayer-backed insurance "co-op" is heading into bankruptcy in Iowa and Nebraska. As nonprofits, co-ops are not subject to accountability to shareholders, and have tended to underprice their products. They may try to game ObamaCare rules, undercutting competitors to capture market share, likely driving normal insurers out of the market. When revenues fail to cover obligations, they count on ObamaCare's reinsurance and risk-corridor safety nets, but these benefits are limited and will expire. CoOpportunity Health cut it too close. Any competitors that it displaced may be gone forever.

The Department of Health and Human Services poured $1,900,000,000 Into two dozen co-ops now responsible for 450,000 Americans. What happens when the government falls as a venture capitalist? Taxpayers take the loss--and what happens to Its subscribers when an insurer runs out of money?

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