A tale of two Obamacare 'bailouts'

Republican critics of Obamacare have lately trained their fire on a program within the health care law that would provide a federal bailout to companies that lose money on insurance plans they sell on the Affordable Care Act exchanges.

But the “risk corridor” program, jointly funded by the government and the insurance industry, is not the only Obamacare program that would offset insurance companies against excessive financial losses. The “risk adjustment” program also provides money to insurers that lose money on the Obamacare exchanges. However, where “risk corridors” subsidize insurers’ losses on a plan, “risk adjustment” subsidizes losses suffered on an individual consumer.