ObamaCare's Rate Shock Now Includes Its 'Cheap' Plans
INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY
Health Overhaul: The Obama administration recently announced that ObamaCare enrollment would be flat — a stunning admission of failure. An IBD report Tuesday suggests even that could be too optimistic.
IBD's Jed Graham dug into ObamaCare premiums for 2016 in 37 major metro areas and found two disturbing trends.
First, average premiums for the cheapest ObamaCare plans in these markets will be almost 13% higher than this year. Premiums in 22 of them will climb 10% or more, with some showing truly eye-popping hikes.
In Anchorage, Alaska, for example, the cheapest bronze plan will cost 46% more; in Nashville, Tenn., 35%; in Oklahoma City, 32%.
ObamaCare's subsidies will take some of the sting away from those eligible for them, but even then the cheapest bronze premium will rise more than 10% in 10 of the 37 markets.
Graham also found that the average deductible for these plans will be $5,653, a nearly 8% increase from this year. And in some markets, both the premium and the deductible for this allegedly low-cost insurance is skyrocketing.
This adds important new information to Monday's Health and Human Services report, which looked only at the benchmark silver plan in the 37 states using the federal Healthcare.gov exchange. HHS says that these plans will increase an average of 7.5%.
Even so, 19 states will see double-digit increases, and in eight the premium hike will be more than 20%.
The bottom line is that millions will find ObamaCare's already-bloated costs going even higher, often for insurance that comes with extremely high deductibles.
These higher costs will make ObamaCare even less attractive to the young and healthy, who largely stayed away in the first two years, despite the increase in the tax penalty for being uninsured.
Meanwhile, a research paper published by the National Bureau of Economic Research finds that ObamaCare is a bad financial deal for most uninsured, who would end up spending up to five times as much if they signed up for a plan than if they remained uninsured.
As a result, the authors conclude, many uninsured "will prefer to remain uninsured at the current penalty levels for violating the individual mandate."
The administration basically conceded this when it forecast that by the end of 2016, just 10 million would be enrolled — less than half what the Congressional Budget Office had projected just a few months ago.
All this is planting seeds for even worse to come in 2017. No matter what its proponents say, ObamaCare is not "here to stay." At least not in its current form.
IBD's Jed Graham dug into ObamaCare premiums for 2016 in 37 major metro areas and found two disturbing trends.
First, average premiums for the cheapest ObamaCare plans in these markets will be almost 13% higher than this year. Premiums in 22 of them will climb 10% or more, with some showing truly eye-popping hikes.
In Anchorage, Alaska, for example, the cheapest bronze plan will cost 46% more; in Nashville, Tenn., 35%; in Oklahoma City, 32%.
ObamaCare's subsidies will take some of the sting away from those eligible for them, but even then the cheapest bronze premium will rise more than 10% in 10 of the 37 markets.
Graham also found that the average deductible for these plans will be $5,653, a nearly 8% increase from this year. And in some markets, both the premium and the deductible for this allegedly low-cost insurance is skyrocketing.
This adds important new information to Monday's Health and Human Services report, which looked only at the benchmark silver plan in the 37 states using the federal Healthcare.gov exchange. HHS says that these plans will increase an average of 7.5%.
Even so, 19 states will see double-digit increases, and in eight the premium hike will be more than 20%.
The bottom line is that millions will find ObamaCare's already-bloated costs going even higher, often for insurance that comes with extremely high deductibles.
These higher costs will make ObamaCare even less attractive to the young and healthy, who largely stayed away in the first two years, despite the increase in the tax penalty for being uninsured.
Meanwhile, a research paper published by the National Bureau of Economic Research finds that ObamaCare is a bad financial deal for most uninsured, who would end up spending up to five times as much if they signed up for a plan than if they remained uninsured.
As a result, the authors conclude, many uninsured "will prefer to remain uninsured at the current penalty levels for violating the individual mandate."
The administration basically conceded this when it forecast that by the end of 2016, just 10 million would be enrolled — less than half what the Congressional Budget Office had projected just a few months ago.
All this is planting seeds for even worse to come in 2017. No matter what its proponents say, ObamaCare is not "here to stay." At least not in its current form.
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