“Now that the election is out of the way, the Obama administration is able to reveal more about its regulatory plans for implementing that law. On Friday, the Department of Health and Human Services released 373 pages of new Obamacare regs, and buried deep within is a 3.5 percent ‘user fee’ — that is, tax — on premiums from health plans sold on Obamacare’s soon-to-be-established federal exchanges. This tax comes above and beyond Obamacare’s $100 billion excise tax on insurers.”
“New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) declined to set up a state-based insurance exchange under the healthcare law Thursday — the same day he met with President Obama on Hurricane Sandy aid. The move will be welcomed by conservatives who blamed Christie for praising Obama’s response to the storm. Sandy hit just before the election and distracted national media coverage from Obama’s campaign against Mitt Romney. “
“In recent weeks, the Obama administration issued a series of proposed regulations for the health insurance market. Since then, I conducted an informal survey of a number of insurers with substantial individual and small group business… On average, expect a 30% to 40% increase in the baseline cost of individual health insurance to account for the new premium taxes, reinsurance costs, benefit mandate increases, and underwriting reforms.”
“If young adults can’t afford health insurance policies available in 2014 under the health care law, state insurance officials are worried they won’t buy them. And that could drive up the cost of insurance for the mostly older, sicker people who do purchase coverage. That’s a potential problem even in states like California and Rhode Island, which are moving ahead to carry out the law, state officials told representatives of the Obama administration Friday at a meeting of the National Association of Insurance Commissioners.”
“States already struggling to get by will face even tighter fiscal constraints thanks to yet another costly Obamacare mandate. A study last week from the Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured revealed President Obama’s health care takeover would dump $1 trillion in new costs on federal and state taxpayers over the next decade.”
“As key provisions of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) are moving closer to full implementation, the Department of Health
and Human Services (HHS) is beginning to define regulations, with the latest round of draft rules released last Friday.
Among the new regulations is a proposed 3.5 percent “user fee” to be charged to insurers that want to sell plans on the
federally facilitated insurance exchanges (FFE).”