Happy Obamacare Anniversary: Claims Cost And Premiums To Increase

Obamacare Anniversary is plagued by bad new's reports.

Yesterday, the AP reported, “Insurance companies will have to pay out an average of 32 percent more for medical claims on individual health policies under President Barack Obama's overhaul, the nation's leading group of financial risk analysts has estimated. That's likely to increase premiums for at least some Americans buying individual plans. The report by the Society of Actuaries could turn into a big headache for the Obama administration at a time when many parts of the country remain skeptical about the Affordable Care Act. . . . The disparities are striking. By 2017, the estimated increase would be 62 percent for California, about 80 percent for Ohio, more than 20 percent for Florida and 67 percent for Maryland. Much of the reason for the higher claims costs is that sicker people are expected to join the pool, the report said.”

And while Obama administration officials are questioning the report, the AP notes, “A prominent national expert, recently retired Medicare chief actuary Rick Foster, said the report does ‘a credible job’ of estimating potential enrollment and costs under the law, ‘without trying to tilt the answers in any particular direction.’ . . . Kristi Bohn, an actuary who worked on the study . . . said the goal was to look at the underlying cost of medical care. ‘Claims cost is the most important driver of health care premiums,’ she said.”

Even Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius is acknowledging that health care costs are going to rise under Obamacare, despite the repeated insistence of the president and Democrats that they won’t.

The Hill headlines its story, “Premiums could rise under healthcare law, Sebelius concedes,” writing, “The Obama administration acknowledged Tuesday that some people could see their premiums rise under the healthcare reform law. Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Kathleen Sebelius told reporters that ‘there may be a higher cost associated with getting into that market’ where ‘folks will be moving into a really fully insured product for the first time.’”

And Reuters summarizes, “President Barack Obama's top healthcare adviser acknowledged on Tuesday that costs could rise in the individual health insurance market, particularly for men and younger people, because of the landmark 2010 healthcare restructuring due to take effect next year.”

Meanwhile, the ever-growing pile of regulations Obamacare is generating is already setting off alarm bells. According to Reuters, “Millions of Americans will be priced out of health insurance under President Barack Obama's healthcare overhaul because of a glitch in the law that adversely affects people with modest incomes who cannot afford family coverage offered by their employers, a leading healthcare advocacy group said on Tuesday. . . . The law specifies that employer-sponsored insurance is affordable so long as a worker's share of the premium does not exceed 9.5 percent of the worker's household income. In its rule making, or final interpretation of the law, the IRS said affordability should be based strictly on individual coverage costs, however. That means that, even if family coverage through an employer-based plan far exceeds the 9.5 percent cutoff, workers would not be eligible for the tax credits to help buy insurance for children or non-working dependents.”

Reuters adds, “Separately, a Democratic U.S. senator on Tuesday said the federal government has limited scope to help millions of people likely to remain without affordable health insurance under the new law. . . . Wyden said the approach would not help many of the nearly 4 million worker dependents who may have to forego subsidized private health coverage as a result of an IRS ruling.”

As the ARRA News Service has continually supported, Time to Repeal the Bill.

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