Media Matters is being far too kind with Fox News with
this headline: "Fox News Still Doesn't Understand The ACA's Risk Corridors." Fox News doesn't care about understanding anything about Obamacare and providing factual information to its viewers. What Fox News is doing is
lying about the ACA's risk corridors:
On the March 5 edition of Fox's America's News HQ, co-host Greg Jarrett and Fox Business host David Asman promoted the GOP claim that the ACA's risk corridor provision is a "taxpayer funded bailout" for insurance companies, suggesting that an estimated $5.5 billion in payments over the next year contradicted President Obama's promise that there would be no more bailouts and that the ACA would not add to the deficit. Asman further claimed the administration is "calling it a temporary pool of money. Now maybe if you believe that Obamacare wasn't going to cost a dime, you'll buy that explanation. But most of the time when the government sends money in to that degree, into these companies, it doesn't get the money back."
Well, yes, it is a temporary pool of money—paid into
by insurance companies. Not the government. Not the taxpayer. You know what else is really good about the risk pools? It helps keep everyone's premiums lower! Because it means that all insurers can afford to take on all comers. If they end up taking on a bunch of patients who are sicker—higher risk—they've got this safety net of funds to keep them from losing a lot of money. Losses that they'd have to recoup with higher premiums from everyone else.
Isn't that a handy idea? Even your average Fox News viewer would probably be able to understand it. If Fox News had any interest in explaining it truthfully, that is.