Kentucky Congressman John Yarmuth says there were no fundamental flaws in the Affordable Care Act that caused the Kentucky Health Co-operative and others around the country to fail in their initial phase of operations.
The Louisville Democrat says it’s common for new business ventures to struggle in their first few years and the co-operatives created after the ACA entered health care markets without much information about them.
Despite the collapse of the KHC, Yarmuth says, the law and its implementation through the state’s own exchange known as Kynect, has made a tremendous difference in Kentucky.
“We have led the country in the reduction in the amount of uninsured, more than fifty percent of our previously uninsured are now covered, more than five hundred 20 thousand people in a state of four-point-four million. And more importantly than that I think is that, every day I’m hearing from people who now have insurance and had a family member or a neighbor or friend whose life has been saved because they had insurance that they otherwise wouldn’t have.”
Yarmuth made his comments Thursday (November 5) at a hearing of the House Energy and Commerce Committee.
The panel is looking into the financial problems experienced by some of the health insurance co-operatives.
