Lawmakers will soon grapple with the fact that sick people are expensive to cover, and someone has to pay. However, we must understand that there is no certain cost to health insurance.
What the general discussion about how to cover people in the future is missing is that Obamacare is so flawed that by itself it is manufacturing plan premium levels that are at least 30% to 40% higher than they need to be.
The Obamacare insurance exchanges cover only about 40% of those that are subsidy eligible, when the longstanding insurance industry underwriting rule calls for 75% of an eligible group to be covered in order to have enough healthy people enrolled to pay the costs of the sick. This critical point that is being missed.
What would happen if the plans were more attractive––if people saw value in them? And, if we had 75% of the eligible group signing up as a result, what impact would that have on current premiums?
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