'Obamacare' to see double-digit premium hikes, administration confirms

[Teh One Who Knocks]

The Associated Press


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WASHINGTON (AP) — Premiums will go up sharply next year under President Barack Obama's health care law, and many consumers will be down to just one insurer, the administration confirmed Monday. That will stoke another "Obamacare" controversy days before a presidential election.

Before taxpayer-provided subsidies, premiums for a midlevel benchmark plan will increase an average of 25 percent across the 39 states served by the federally run online market, according to a report from the Department of Health and Human Services. Some states will see much bigger jumps, others less.

Moreover, about 1 in 5 consumers will only have plans from a single insurer to pick from, after major national carriers such as UnitedHealth Group, Humana and Aetna scaled back their roles.

"Consumers will be faced this year with not only big premium increases but also with a declining number of insurers participating, and that will lead to a tumultuous open enrollment period," said Larry Levitt, who tracks the health care law for the nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation.

Republicans will pounce on the numbers as confirmation that insurance markets created by the 2010 health overhaul are on the verge of collapsing in a "death spiral." Sign-up season starts Nov. 1, about a week before national elections in which the GOP remains committed to a full repeal. Window shopping for plans and premiums is already available through HealthCare.gov.

The sobering numbers confirmed state-by-state reports that have been coming in for months. Administration officials are stressing that subsidies provided under the law, which are designed to rise alongside premiums, will insulate most customers from sticker shock. They add that consumers who are willing to switch to cheaper plans will still be able to find bargains.

"Headline rates are generally rising faster than in previous years," acknowledged HHS spokesman Kevin Griffis. But he added that for most consumers, "headline rates are not what they pay."

The vast majority of the more than 10 million customers who purchase through HealthCare.gov and its state-run counterparts do receive generous financial assistance. "Enrollment is concentrated among very low-income individuals who receive significant government subsidies to reduce premiums and cost-sharing," said Caroline Pearson of the consulting firm Avalere Health

But an estimated 5 million to 7 million people are either not eligible for the income-based assistance, or they buy individual policies outside of the health law's markets, where the subsidies are not available. The administration is urging the latter group to check out HealthCare.gov. The spike in premiums generally does not affect the employer-provided plans that most workers and their families rely on.

In some states, the premium increases are striking. In Arizona, unsubsidized premiums for a 27-year-old buying a benchmark "second-lowest cost silver plan" will jump by 116 percent, from $196 to $422, according to the administration report. Oklahoma has the next biggest increase for a similarly situated customer, 69 percent.

Dwindling choice is another problem factor.

The total number of HealthCare.gov insurers will drop from 232 this year to 167 in 2017, a loss of 28 percent. (Insurers are counted multiple times if they offer coverage in more than one state. So Aetna, for example, would count once in each state that it participated in.)

Switching insurers may not be simple for patients with chronic conditions.

While many carriers are offering a choice of plan designs, most use a single prescription formulary and physician network across all their products, explained Pearson. "So, enrollees may need to change doctors or drugs when they switch insurers," he said.

[deebakes]

:rip:

[lost in melb.]

How is this Obama's fault. It's a private industry isn't it?

[Teh One Who Knocks]

How is this Obama's fault. It's a private industry isn't it?

:-s

It's his signature heathcare legislation...it's government mandated, government run, and taxpayer subsidized, of course it's his fault. Yes, the actual insurance companies are private entities, but they are bound by the regulations set forth in the law and they are losing their asses and passing the cost on to their other customers (the working class people that get their own insurance or insurance thru their employer). And that's why almost all the insurance companies want nothing more to do with Obamacare and are or have already pulled out of the exchanges.

[PorkChopSandwiches]

Thanks Obama

[Teh One Who Knocks]

:racist:

[RBP]

:-s

It's his signature heathcare legislation...it's government mandated, government run, and taxpayer subsidized, of course it's his fault. Yes, the actual insurance companies are private entities, but they are bound by the regulations set forth in the law and they are losing their asses and passing the cost on to their other customers (the working class people that get their own insurance or insurance thru their employer). And that's why almost all the insurance companies want nothing more to do with Obamacare and are or have already pulled out of the exchanges.

Not to mention that part of the deal was the government agreeing to pay for their losses at the start of the program. As that was phased out the insurers had to cover the losses themselves, which means the plan members pay. I'd have to find numbers, but I don't think the losses are new, they are just no longer being hidden by government hush money.

[Teh One Who Knocks]

Not to mention that part of the deal was the government agreeing to pay for their losses at the start of the program. As that was phased out the insurers had to cover the losses themselves, which means the plan members pay. I'd have to find numbers, but I don't think the losses are new, they are just no longer being hidden by government hush money.

And what makes it even worse now that I think about it, we the taxpayers are getting dinged twice because of Obamacare. Not only is it taxpayer subsidized, so the government is using our tax money to help fund it, but our insurance premiums keep skyrocketing, so we're paying on that end too. :|

[RBP]

Ding ding ding.

[Muddy]

Yeah.. they screwed the pooch on this one...

[PorkChopSandwiches]

Who would have guessed this would be shitty

[RBP]

Who would have guessed this would be shitty

:shocker:

[PorkChopSandwiches]

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[Teh One Who Knocks]

By Adam Shaw - FOX News


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The Obama administration is trying to calm the panic over soaring ObamaCare premiums by pointing to subsidies many will receive to offset the cost -- but analysts and GOP lawmakers counter that those subsidies nevertheless will stick taxpayers with a rising bill.

With enrollment set to begin Nov. 1, the administration announced Monday that premiums are set rise an average of 25 percent across the 39 states served by the federally run online market. Some states, such as Arizona, will see premiums jump by as much as 116 percent.

Department of Health and Human Services officials are stressing that subsidies provided under the law, which are designed to rise alongside premiums, will insulate most customers from sticker shock.

But the rising cost of subsidies, which already totals tens of billions a year, would be passed on to the taxpayer.

“Taxpayers are already in for a lot,” Tom Miller, resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, told FoxNews.com. “The cost doesn’t go away, it just goes into someone else’s pocket.”

In a March report, the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office estimated that subsidies given to enrollees in 2016 would amount to $43 billion in 2016, and predicted the cost would rise to $106 billion by 2026. It also said that over 10 years, ObamaCare provisions would reduce the deficit thanks to tax provisions and cuts to Medicare.

That was before the latest announcement by the administration. It's unclear how exactly the looming premium hikes will affect that picture, though Republicans are now seeking new estimates.

Analysts say it's safe to assume taxpayer costs will rise. Miller noted that HHS reported an average subsidy of $291 per month in 2016. A 25 percent increase in premiums would theoretically translate into an extra $73 per month, or about $870 a year per person.

“If you assume conservatively that there’s 10 million people getting subsidies, that’s an extra $8.5 billion in extra costs taxpayers are getting hit by going into next year,” he said.

Other experts warned this is likely to continue as long as premiums keep rising.

“Its real simple, premiums are going up and up, and subsidies are going to go up with them,” Douglas Holtz-Eakin, president of the American Action Forum and a former CBO director, told FoxNews.com.

The Department for Health and Human Services, when asked for comment by FoxNews.com, noted that the law’s coverage provisions are set to cost 28 percent less in 2019 than the CBO originally projected, amounting to about $49 billion less than originally predicted when the law was signed in 2010.

A spokesman also said the same office predicted that repealing the law would increase the deficit by approximately $350 billion over 10 years.

Holtz-Eakin urged caution on the administration’s analysis.

“It’s been a mixed pattern, because the enrollments haven’t been what they expected so it hasn’t been as big of an impact financially,” he said. “The bad news is that spending per person is much higher than anticipated due to subsidy increases because of premium hikes.”

One of the biggest ObamaCare costs to taxpayers has been absorbed into the Medicaid budget, paid for by both state and federal governments.

As a sweetener to get states to go along with the plan, the federal government offered to pick up the cost of expanding Medicaid eligibility up to 133 percent of the poverty line. That siphoned low income -- and expensive – customers away from ObamaCare exchanges, seemingly contributing to its current solvency. But that cost – in the hundreds of billions -- also is borne by taxpayers.

The CBO projected in 2013 that, in part due to ObamaCare, federal Medicaid spending would more than double over the next 10 years, topping $554 billion by 2023. State governments pay another $160 billion toward Medicaid.

“Volume has been greater in Medicaid, and per person costs have been much higher than expected,” Edmund Haislmaier, senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation, told FoxNews.com.

Sensing a spike in taxpayer costs, the Republican-led House Committee on Energy and Commerce has written to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services demanding how much taxpayer money will be spent subsidizing the cost of rising premiums.

“While the Administration continues to focus on premium 'affordability,' it ignores the undeniable fact that federal taxpayers are subsidizing these premium increases through tax credits,” the letter from Chairman Fred Upton, R-Mich., says. "The Committee is concerned that the federal taxpayer continues to bear the burden of subsidizing the growing cost of health care insurance.”

The committee is demanding estimates of the amount of money spent covering rising premiums by Nov. 7.

[lost in melb.]

:-s

It's his signature heathcare legislation...it's government mandated, government run, and taxpayer subsidized, of course it's his fault. Yes, the actual insurance companies are private entities, but they are bound by the regulations set forth in the law and they are losing their asses and passing the cost on to their other customers (the working class people that get their own insurance or insurance thru their employer). And that's why almost all the insurance companies want nothing more to do with Obamacare and are or have already pulled out of the exchanges.


Not to mention that part of the deal was the government agreeing to pay for their losses at the start of the program. As that was phased out the insurers had to cover the losses themselves, which means the plan members pay. I'd have to find numbers, but I don't think the losses are new, they are just no longer being hidden by government hush money.

Thanks. Your health care system is at times very hard to understand - from an overseas perspective.

[deebakes]

it's super jacked up, even from an internal perspective :|

[lost in melb.]

Yeah, there's no logic to it. That's why it's so hard to understand