Expanded health insurance coverage under the Affordable Care Act, President Barack Obama’s signature legislative legacy, will cost the government more, according to an official study released Thursday. Still, on balance, the measure more than pays for itself.
The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said the health care law will cost $1.34 trillion over the coming decade, $136 billion more than the CBO predicted a year ago. That 11 percent hike is mostly caused by higher-than-expected enrollment in the expanded Medicaid program established under the law.
All told, 22 million more people will have health care coverage this year than if the law had never been enacted, CBO said. The measure’s coverage provisions are expected to cost $110 billion this year.
Federal officials have been lucky until now, but the Affordable Care Act’s Internet web portal could become a hacker’s playground — with plenty of sensitive data compromised — without a significant tightening of security, according to a new report by the Government Accountability Office.
The new warning comes on the sixth anniversary of the enactment of the ACA and addresses security problems related to the personal information — including names, addresses, Social Security numbers and sensitive income and tax details — of literally millions of Americans who have enrolled in the insurance program online through HealthCare.gov.
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Birthdays usually represent a time for celebration. But when it comes to Obamacare’s sixth birthday, partying is the last thing on Arizonans’ minds.
Six years after the so-called Affordable Care Act was signed into law, President Obama’s litany of failed promises continue to add up. Despite all his assurances, Americans who liked their health care plans couldn’t keep them, premiums have gone up – not down – and taxes continue to multiply.
That’s why it is no surprise that a February poll by National Public Radio and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation found only 15 percent of people say that they have personally benefited from Obamacare, while 25 percent allege they have been personally harmed by the law.
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Health insurance premiums have increased faster than wages and inflation in recent years, rising an average of 28 percent from 2009 to 2014 despite the enactment of Obamacare, according to a report from Freedom Partners.
The Obama administration expressed concern in 2009 about skyrocketing health care premiums in a report entitled, “The Burden of Health Insurance Premium Increases on American Families.” They were concerned that premiums had increased by 5.5 percent from 2008 to 2009.
However, from 2010 to 2011 in the first year after Obamacare was enacted, premiums increased by 9.4 percent.
According to the report, while premiums increased by 28 percent from 2009 to 2014, wages increased by only 7.8 percent. From 2004 to 2009 when premiums increased by 30 percent, wages increased by only 12.2 percent.
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The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services released a white paper detailing the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid’s risk adjustment model Thursday.
“CMS has implemented a risk adjustment program to mitigate the effects of risk selection on health insurance premiums for non-grandfathered plans in the individual and small group markets,” the paper concludes. “The risk adjustment program, supports market stability by pooling risk and transferring funds from plans with more low-risk (i.e., healthier and lower cost) enrollees to those plans with more high-risk (i.e., less healthy and higher cost) enrollees.”
The paper also suggests potential modifications for the 2018 and 2019 benefit years.
The Congressional Budget Office reduced the projected number of people who will enroll on the federal insurance exchanges to 12 million from 21 million in a report released Thursday.
Still, between 2017 and 2026, the CBO projects the number of insured people in the U.S. will grow from 246 million to 253 million. While the number of uninsured is expected to grow from 26 million to 28 million, the portion of uninsured people younger than 65 is expected to stay around 10 percent, according to the report.
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In year six, even with lower than anticipated enrollment in the health insurance exchanges and the refusal of 21 states to participate in the law’s Medicaid expansion, the health care cost curve is still on an upwardly mobile trajectory.
It is fueled by sharp increases in both public and private health care spending.
Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services data show that total per capita health insurance spending will rise from $7,786 in 2016 to $11,681 in 2024. Looking at the future of employer-based health insurance costs, the Congressional Budget Office projects that job-based premiums are poised to increase by almost 60 percent between now and 2025.
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Based on the data included in this report, it is clear that health insurance premium costs have continued to grow despite the passage of the Affordable Care Act in 2010. Furthermore, health care premium costs are rising at a rate comparable to the years directly preceding the election of President Obama and passage of the Affordable Care Act. As costs continue to rise, millions of families will face tough financial choices and make even more sacrifices. For those who have experienced little to no increase in wages, health insurance may simply become unaffordable and the prospect of paying a tax penalty may become another unwanted reality.
For those who have enrolled in new health insurance plans on the exchanges, recent premium increases have been even worse. And in 2016, deductibles have gone up for those very same individuals. Worst of all, the outlook for 2017 is no brighter. As University of Minnesota scholar Stephen Parente’s research estimates, each type of health care plan on the exchanges can expect to see a premium increase, with the average increase being 7.3 percent for families and 11 percent for individuals.
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The so-called “Cadillac Tax” is a 40 percent excise tax on the value of employer-sponsored health coverage that exceeds certain benefit thresholds, estimated to be approximately $10,800 for employee-only plans and $29,100 for family plans when the tax takes effect in 2020.
While the name may imply the tax applies to a few individuals with luxury health coverage, the truth is it extends much further. 175 million Americans – including retirees, low- and moderate-income families, public sector employees, small business owners and the selfemployed – currently depend on employer-sponsored health coverage and they are all at risk.
On behalf of the American Benefits Council, Public Opinion Strategies conducted a nationwide online survey of 1,200 registered voters from January 29 to February 3, 2016. These findings indicate that voter support for the “Cadillac Tax” is dwarfed by support for repeal.
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Voters are more likely to re-elect their representative if they voted to repeal the “Cadillac” tax, though a majority of voters say it makes no real difference in their vote, a report out today from the American Benefits Council says.
Overall, 37 percent of voters said their congressman voting to repeal the tax would make them more likely to re-elect their representative, while 16 percent said it would make them less likely to do so. Still, 47 percent said the vote made no difference. The report was released by the Alliance to Fight the 40, a coalition of groups advocating to repeal the tax on high-cost health plans.
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