It’s unclear which insurance policies will be “grandfathered” against new regulations.
Large firms have a strong incentive to drop coverage under the new health law.
White Castle finds that the new law might cut its net income in half.
“[Explaining the health care law is] just like trying to explain the Encyclopedia Britannica.”
An MIT economist says that past increases in government-provided insurance have raised health costs far more than expected.
The Milliman consulting and actuarial firm discusses how an ineffective individual mandate — one that leads many people to defy the requirement that they buy insurance — combined with a mandate that insurers cover all comers without charging any additional premiums for those with preexisting conditions, would likely raise health insurance premiums dramatically.
As this chart visually demonstrates, the Congressional Budget Office projects that the total costs of the Senate health-care bill, which eventually became law (in tandem with the Reconciliation Act), are about $2.5 trillion — more than double the tally that the Democrats cite.
In perhaps the most authoritative study to date on ObamaCare’s likely impact on insurance premiums, the Oliver Wyman consulting firm spent eight months developing a model to gauge the legislation’s effects, drawing on a database of actual insurance information for nearly 6 million people. The firm’s analysis of the Senate bill (which, in connection with the Reconciliation Act, became law) concludes that its weak individual mandate wouldn’t coax high participation among younger and healthier people; that its other mandates (requiring more expensive coverage and not allowing insurers to charge applicants based on the likely costs of their care) would encourage high participation among older and less-healthy people; that adverse selection would result; and that premiums would therefore rise dramatically. Within five years, the average family’s insurance premiums would be $3,341 higher with ObamaCare than without it, the average individual’s premiums would be $1,576 higher, and overall insurance costs would be 54 percent higher — above and beyond the impact of medical inflation.
As this slide-show depicts, subsidies provided through ObamaCare for lower- and middle-class workers who receive health-care through the government-run exchanges would be much greater than the tax-breaks provided to lower- or middle-class workers who receive employer-provided health insurance. This would lead employers to drop these workers’ insurance and let them be covered through the exchanges, at taxpayer expense. Thus, ObamaCare is not only a new health-care system but a new welfare and tax system, which would lead to the segregation of the labor market: upper-income workers would continue to get insurance through their employers; lower- and middle-class workers would eventually get it through the government.