July 24, 2014 10:35 AM UTC

Scandal: Obamacare Forces Insurers To Refund Millions!

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• by: Colorado Pols

​As noted by the Denver Business Journal's Ed Sealover: while the Denver Post's health insurance supersleuth Art Kane continues his ongoing series of one-sided hit pieces "special reports" about the rollout of the Affordable Care Act in Colorado, wherein everything consumers have ever complained about with regard to health care delivery in the United States is laid at the feet of "Obamacare"–health insurers sometimes have billing problems!–consumers are seeing another benefit of the ACA in the form of a check.

Colorado consumers will receive nearly $3 million in refunds from insurance companies that did not spend enough money on patient care last year.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services announced Wednesday that nine companies must cut checks to 52,277 customers for a cumulative total of $2,721,701 for violating the medical loss ratio rule established in the federal Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.

The rule requires insurers to spend at least 80 percent of premium dollars on patient care and quality-improvement activities or else refund a portion to consumers…

Sealover reports that this year's refunds to Colorado consumers are less than in the first year of Obamacare's "medical loss ratio" rule, which requires health insurance companies to spend 80% of small group and individual premium dollars directly on health care and services to improve care. For large group plans, the requirement is 85%. The lower rebate payout this year can logically be interpreted as compliance.

It's just another example of how the myths surrounding the Affordable Care Act are not being substantiated by voters' experience with the law. Public opinion persistently trends against "Obamacare," even as consumers reap the benefits of individual provisions like the medical loss ratio rule. Millions of consumers are saving big money with subsidized premiums, and for others those subsidies are the different between having insurance and not having insurance. Polling shows that while "Obamacare" is unpopular, the things that the law actually does enjoy broad public support.

We've been saying for years that opposition to the ACA would fall apart once the benefits of the law were generally known by the public, proving once and for all that the horror stories opponents predicted were hogwash. Working against that has been an opposition who clung to this issue well past the point of reason, an effective propaganda dissemination machine untroubled by reality, and a troubled initial rollout of the health insurance exchanges that gave opponents weeks longer to grouse.

But the bottom line hasn't changed. It can't go on forever.