The average monthly ObamaCare premium grew by about 5 percent over last year once financial assistance is factored in, according to government data released Friday.
The average monthly premium on the ObamaCare marketplace is $106 this year, compared to $101 last year, according to a new Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) report.
Those figures factor in the financial assistance under the healthcare law that substantially lowers the premiums consumers have to pay. Eighty-five percent of enrollees qualified for financial assistance.
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Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) is opening a new front in his attacks on ObamaCare as he campaigns for president.
After trying to bring publicity to his efforts to limit the Affordable Care Act’s “risk corridors” program, Rubio and Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), the chairman of the Finance Committee and a campaign backer, wrote a letter on Tuesday arguing that the Obama administration is breaking the law with another “bailout” of insurance companies.
Their letter concerns ObamaCare’s “reinsurance” program, designed to protect insurers against high costs for sicker enrollees in the early years of the law. Under the program, the government collects money from insurers and then redistributes it to those with high-cost enrollees.
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A new report dives into the problem-plagued development of the ObamaCare website and finds repeated warning signs that went unheeded before its failed launch.
President Obama has called the launch of healthcare.gov a “well-documented disaster,” and a Department of Health and Human Services Inspector General report provides a new in-depth look at the problems and lessons learned.
The IG report finds that the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which oversees healthcare.gov, received 18 “documented warnings” of problems with the site’s construction between July 2011 and July 2013. But the warnings were either not communicated across the agency or not acted upon, the report says.
The Obama administration is setting up a new ObamaCare sign-up period for people who failed to file 2014 tax returns.
Jan. 31 was the deadline for most people to sign up, but this new period will provide another chance until March 31, for certain people who might have missed out on coverage because of confusion about new ObamaCare requirements regarding taxes and health insurance.
The House is expected to vote in the coming week on legislation to roll back some menu labeling requirements of the Affordable Care Act.
The Common Sense Nutrition Disclosure Act, introduced by Reps. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.) and Loretta Sanchez (D-Calif.), would exempt most grocery stores, convenience stores, gas stations and movie theaters from having to provide calorie counts for prepared food items.
The House bill would only apply the nutrition rule to establishments that derive more than 50% of their total revenue from the sale of food.
The average ObamaCare premium rose to $408 per month for 2016 plans, about a 9 percent increase from this time last year, according to a new report from the Department of Health and Human Services.
However, 83 percent of ObamaCare enrollees pay far less than $408 because they get tax credits under the healthcare law. The average tax credit for 2016 is $294, meaning that the average share of the premiums that enrollees have to pay is $113. That is up $8 from the $105 people paid on average last year.
House Republican committee chairmen on Wednesday subpoenaed Treasury Secretary Jack Lew for documents related to ObamaCare payments that Republicans say are unlawful.
House Energy and Commerce Chairman Fred Upton (R-Mich.) and House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Kevin Brady (R-Texas) issued the subpoena for Lew and three Internal Revenue Service officials to produce documents related to financial help for people under ObamaCare known as “cost sharing reductions.”
The lawmakers are issuing the subpoena after repeatedly requesting the information throughout 2015 but being rebuffed by the administration.
President Obama is proposing to boost federal funding for states that choose to expand Medicaid under ObamaCare in a new effort to entice states to make the move.
Obama will propose in his 2017 budget to have the federal government pick up the entire cost of expansion for three years, no matter when a state decides to accept the expansion.
Under current law, states only got three years of full federal funding if they accepted the expansion in 2014. If nothing changes, states newly accepting the expansion would not get full federal funding after 2016 and instead would get payments that are somewhat less, eventually dialing back to 90% of costs.
The percentage of people without health insurance held steady in 2015, according to the Gallup polling organization, which last week announced that the un-insurance rate remained “essentially unchanged” throughout 2015. That wasn’t good news for the administration, which had hoped the pollster would confirm that ObamaCare had significantly reduced the un-insurance rate in 2015. Doug Badger, Senior Fellow at the Galen Institute, digs deeper by comparing the Gallup poll with government surveys conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and the Census Bureau.
Reconciliation shows repeal is possible. Now is the time to show that replacing ObamaCare is possible too. To do that, Congress should spend the next year building a framework for a patient-centered, market-based alternative that empowers individuals to control the dollars and decisions regarding their health care. Congress must use sound financing, stabilize and liberate the health care market, and make financing simpler, transparent and direct to individuals.