This year’s price increases for Obamacare insurance policies make a bitter joke of Obama’s assurances that costs would go down under his fiasco-prone scheme. From Devon Harrick at healthblog.ncpa.org:
The third Obamacare Open Enrollment period began November 1st. As a result, many families are faced with a tough choice: purchase coverage they cannot afford with few tangible benefits, or pay an equally unaffordable penalty and hope they do not become sick. The Internal Revenue Service determined that 7.5 million individuals opted to pay the penalty rather than purchase health coverage in 2014, far more than originally projected. The penalty for going without coverage in 2014 was only $95 or one percent of income, whichever was greater. Yet the tax year data found the average penalty paid was double the minimum. This suggests it wasn’t the poor who were going without coverage; the poorest individuals either qualified for generous subsidies, Medicaid or got an exemption from the penalty. Many of those who paid the penalty were likely individuals who did not qualify for subsidies and could not afford Obamacare coverage due to the costly mandates. To make matters worse, the costs are rising fast.
According to data from the Kaiser Family Foundation, premiums for coverage in Alaska, Colorado, Hawaii, Idaho, Minnesota, Montana, Oklahoma and Tennessee, for example, will rise by about one-third in 2016. Rates in Arizona, Delaware, Nebraska, North Carolina, Oregon, South Dakota and West Virginia will increase by 20 percent to 25 percent. Residents in Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Nevada, North Dakota, South Carolina and Utah will see increases of above 10 percent or more.
No one will escape these rising costs. Americans with employee health plans also experience rising premiums when insurers are forced to sell bloated policies in unprofitable markets. Individuals who forego insurance and chose to pay the penalty will face a greater fine. In 2015, the penalty more than doubled from 2014; in 2016, it will increase yet again. Those failing to obtain health coverage in 2016 will face a penalty of $695 or 2.5 percent of income, whichever is higher.
Americans were led to believe the Affordable Care Act would save the average family about $2,500 per year. That dubious claim was actually just a sound bite with no basis in fact. Unfortunately, in a health reform debate about complicated insurance regulations, a simple assertion that families would save a couple hundred bucks a month resonated more than wonky counterarguments about adverse selection, moral hazard and rising deficits. The Obama Administration would ultimately be proved wrong about cost savings; it recently acknowledged that the “Affordable Care Act” is not affordable for many individuals. An “I told you so” may be in order, but it hardly makes people saddled with high insurance premiums feel any better.
To continue reading: Unaffordable Care Act Nothing to Celebrate
