Obamacare has always been about the responsible, healthy, and solvent subsidizing the medical care of the irresponsible, sick, and insolvent. The decision by the Supreme Court in King v. Burwell may be announced this week. If the court refuses to perform intellectual and linguistic contortions, and says that the Affordable Care Act means what it says about only states that have set up their own exchanges being elegible for federal subsidies, all hell will break loose. Without some sort of legislative patch out of Washington, the pool of people who must purchase insurance through federal government exchanges will shrink dramatically. Those left will be the irresponsible, sick, and insolvent. Stay tuned, no matter what happens, Obamacare will ultimately be a shining example of the Command and Control Futility Principle (governments and central banks can control one or more, but not all variables in a multi-variable system). From Mike Mish Shedlock, at davidstockmanscontracorner.com:
If you did not have insurance before Obamacare, but do now, or if you are heavily subsidized, you may consider Obamacare a blessing.
If you are not in those select groups, then you are highly likely to be paying more for insurance now than before. And it’s going to get worse.
Health Pocket reports Obamacare Insurers Propose 12% Higher Premiums for 2016.
Rates Up 20% for Health Maintenance Organizations and 18% for Exclusive Provider Organizations.
Obamacare plans are classified into four metal levels depending on the percentage of costs that they typically pay for covered healthcare services. A bronze plan pays 60% of covered costs for a standard population, a silver plan 70%, a gold plan 80%, and a platinum plan 90%. Obamacare plans also have four provider network types: Health maintenance organizations (HMOs), Exclusive Provider Organizations (EPOs), Point of Service (POS) plans, and Preferred Provider Organizations (PPOs). PPOs and POS plans cover out-of-network care2, while HMOs and EPOs do not. EPO and PPO plans do not require referrals from primary care doctors to see specialists, but HMO and POS plans require referrals.
[Mish Comment: You can save a lot of money on a bronze plan, but you better not get major sick or in a major accident]
When insurance companies proposed premium rates for the first year of the Affordable Care Act, 2014, they had guessed what services would be used and how frequently the use would occur because the Affordable Care Act had opened the door in the privately purchased health insurance market to people who had been previously rejected from coverage due to costly pre-existing conditions. The Affordable Care Act’s prohibition on denying coverage based on health considerations meant that the composition of the enrollee pools would change from what they were during the pre-reform period. Less healthy enrollees who used more care would become a larger portion of the enrollee pools.
2016 health insurance rates, in contrast, are based on a full year’s healthcare usage data from 2014 as well as partial data from 2015. Accordingly, the public will receive a better representation of the costs of Affordable Care Act coverage in the 2016 rates by virtue of their reliance on more complete data.
http://davidstockmanscontracorner.com/obamacare-sticker-shock-new-rates-up-12-20/
To continue reading: Obamacare Sticker Shock
Reblogged this on The Grey Enigma.