Freedom Partners Chamber of Commerce has analyzed all publicly available information for health-insurance premiums from healthcare.gov and state insurance departments. It then calculated the weighted averages for all health-insurance plans available on the Affordable Care Act’s exchanges. The weighted average gives a more accurate view of overall premium increases, because it takes into account each insurance plan’s market share.
Findings reveal that nationally, premiums for individual health plans increased on average between 2015 and 2016 by 14.9%. Consumers in every state except Mississippi faced increased premiums, and in no fewer than 29 states the average increases were in the double digits. For a third of states, the average premiums rose 20% or more.
In her confrontation with Bernie Sanders, Hillary Clinton always promises to “build on the successes” of ObamaCare, so allow us to recommend a follow-up question: What would those be, precisely? The entitlement is becoming less stable and less entrenched, not more, as it gets older.
The latest jolt is the $475 million loss UnitedHealth Group booked on the insurance exchanges in 2015, which the largest U.S. mega-insurer by membership expects to rise this year to another $500 million.
Repealing the Affordable Care Act is not enough. The country has been drifting toward full federal control of health care for decades. What’s needed is a credible plan to reorient federal policy across the board toward markets and the preferences of consumers and patients, and away from one-size-fits-all bureaucratic micromanagement.
Lanhee Chen and James Capretta, along with 8 other colleagues, have developed such a plan. This plan would:
– Retain employer coverage for 155 million Americans
– Provide age-adjusted tax credits to individuals without employer-sponsored coverage
– Allow for continuous coverage protection
– Reform the Medicaid and Medicare programs
– Expand the use of Health Savings Accounts
UnitedHealth Group Inc. said its projected losses on the Affordable Care Act exchanges for 2016 deepened as enrollment grew despite the company’s efforts to reduce sign-ups.
The biggest U.S. health insurer said it is expecting losses of more than $500 million on its 2016 ACA plans, compared with previous projections that amounted to $400 million to $425 million in losses.
UnitedHealth had taken steps to pull back on its exchange business in anticipation of losses, including reducing marketing and slashing commissions to health-insurance agents.
Among ObamaCare’s few popular features, even among Republicans, is the mandate to cover adult children through age 26 on the insurance plans of their parents. Although sold as a gratuity, somebody must ultimately pay. In a working paper, Gopi Shah Goda and Jay Bhattacharya of Stanford and Monica Farid of Harvard find “evidence that employees who were most affected by the mandate, namely employees at large firms, saw wage reductions of approximately $1,200 per year.”
The Obama administration so far is making little progress in getting more young adults to sign up for health policies on the federal insurance exchange, according to figures released Thursday.
26% of people who signed up for coverage as of Dec. 26 in the 38 states that use the federal exchange were ages 18 to 34, according to a report from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which administers the law. That figure is largely unchanged from a roughly comparable two-month period through Jan. 16, 2015.
The Obama administration wasn’t able to ensure that all tax-credit payments made to insurers under the health law in 2014 were on behalf of consumers who had paid their premiums, according to a federal oversight agency. The Health and Human Services’ Office of Inspector General released the report Wednesday. The findings raise questions about the oversight of tax-credit payments that went to insurers on behalf of consumers who qualified for financial assistance.
Congress returns to work this week, and for once those words shouldn’t trigger a panic attack. As early as Wednesday the House will vote to send a bill repealing most of ObamaCare to President Obama, and this may become a consequential moment, assuming Republicans are prepared to make an argument.
The task now is to leverage Mr. Obama’s veto to hold Democrats accountable for their votes and the consequences. Liberal spin can’t disguise that the law is failing on every level other than expanding coverage—as if anyone ever argued that a new entitlement couldn’t reduce the uninsured rate.
December’s omnibus budget package contained a measure to delay a provision of the Affordable Care Act by two years is giving finance chiefs some extra time to prepare.
The tax on high-cost employee health plans, or “Cadillac” tax, puts employers on the hook for a 40% levy on any excess cost of health plans above certain thresholds. Even before the delay, many companies and municipalities had already begun to assess whether their plans would trigger additional payments and make preemptive changes to avoid it.
A growing number of people are turning to health-care ministries to cover their medical expenses instead of buying traditional insurance, a trend that could challenge the stability of the Affordable Care Act (ACA).
The ministries, which operate outside the insurance system and aren’t regulated by states, provide a health-care cost-sharing arrangement among people with similarly held beliefs. Their membership growth has been spurred by an ACA provision allowing participants in eligible ministries to avoid fines for not buying insurance.
Ministry officials estimate they have about 500,000 members nationwide, more than double the roughly 200,000 members before the law was enacted in 2010.