The Obama administration has repeatedly inferred that most people are fully subsidized under Obamacareand the big 2017 rate increases therefore don’t matter:
“Headline rate increases do not reflect what consumers actually pay,” Kathryn Martin, HHS’s acting assistant secretary for planning and evaluation, said in a statement. “Even in a scenario where all plans saw double-digit rate increases, the vast majority of consumers would continue to have affordable options.”
To be as precise as they are careful to be, they correctly claim that 85% of those buying on the exchanges are subsidized. But they also never mention that half the people who buy Obamcare individual health insurance–on and off the exchanges–don’t get a subsidy and take the full whack from all of the big rate increases and even higher deductibles. The middle class seems to be invisible to them.
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The best measurement of people who lack health insurance, the National Health Interview Survey published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), has released early estimates of health insurance for all fifty states and the District of Columbia in the first quarter of 2016. There are three things to note.
First: 70.2 percent of residents, age 18 to through 64, had “private health insurance” (at the time of the interview) in the first quarter of this year, which is which is the same rate as persisted until 2006. Obamacare has not achieved a breakthrough in coverage. It has just restored us to where we were a decade ago. Further, the contribution of Obamacare’s exchanges to this is almost trivial, covering only four million people.
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Steve Banke employs 40 people at 3-Points, a small IT outsourcing company he founded almost 15 years ago. And he wants those workers and their families to have strong health insurance options.
Employees at the firm, based in Oak Brook, Ill., can choose between two types of Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Illinois plans: a PPO with a broader network of hospitals and doctors or a cheaper HMO network. Banke’s company covers a percentage of the premiums, and those costs have risen rapidly over the past several years, often more than 12% annually, he said.
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As the election enters the final two months, reporters have been speculating on an “October Surprise,” or perhaps a September one.
There are plenty of candidates, beginning with more Wikileaks about Hillary Clinton’s emails as Secretary of State. There is speculation about pay-to-play at the Clinton Foundation and what’s hiding in Donald Trump’s taxes.
What has received too little attention is the steady collapse of Obamacare and the impact that will have on insurance premiums, which will arrive just before Election Day. The Chicago Tribune called them “cardiac-arrest-inducing premium increases.”
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The Cuomo administration late Friday announced emergency regulations that would upend the federal government’s risk adjustment program, a move meant to protect some of the state’s smaller players and keep them from bolting the still nascent small-group market created by the Affordable Care Act.
The move comes the same day as the deadline for health insurance companies to contract with New York State of Health, the state-run exchange that sells insurance to individuals and small groups, and follows threats from several insurers that said they would not sell small group plans in 2017 if changes to the program were not made.
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President Barack Obama and former top Obamacare official Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel are now floating the idea of a public option as an answer to the seemingly inevitable collapse of Obama’s landmark health care legislation.
Obamacare has seen better days: It’s had 16 health care co-ops go kaput, including in New York, some major health care providers are pulling out, and analysts have almost nothing rosy to say about the legislation in both the near and long term. As a result, Obama and his surrogates are scrambling to shore up the sinking ship.
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Average premium increases above 25%, roughly one-third of U.S. counties projected to lack any competition in the Affordable Care Act (ACA) exchanges next year, and enrollment less than half of initial expectations provide strong evidence that the law’s exchange program is failing. Moreover, the failure is occurring despite massive government subsidies, including nearly $15 billion of unlawful payments, for participating insurers. As bad news pours in and with a potentially very rough 2017 open enrollment period ahead, the Obama administration signaled on Friday that it may defy Congress and bail out insurers through the risk corridor program. Congress should take all steps at its disposal to prevent the administration from doing so.
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Leading progressive senators are demanding an explanation from the insurance giant Aetna about its abrupt decision to pull out of most ObamaCare exchanges this year, which they said appeared to be politically motivated.
Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) announced Thursday they are launching a probe into Aetna, which bailed on ObamaCare just weeks after the Justice Department moved to block its multi-billion merger with another top-five insurer.
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Two bills cracking down on ObamaCare’s individual mandate are being fast-tracked through the Senate, setting up a potential election-year fight over the healthcare law.
Senate Republicans have returned from a seven-week recess with a unified message they plan to repeat until November: Obamacare is imploding.
News of double-digit premium increases in 2017, insurers pulling out of the marketplace, failing co-ops, and low enrollment numbers have handed an opportunity to Senate Republicans who worried about losing the majority in the fall. They get to say, “I told you so,” after a six years of Obamacare messaging, and they get to tell voters that a GOP majority will fix these issues.
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