Blog: Obamacare Premiums Skyrocketing
Back in October 2009 President Obama cast insurance companies as obstacles to change interested only in preserving their own “profits and bonuses” and willing to “bend the truth or break it” to stop his drive to remake the nation’s health care system. The report, issued by America’s Health Insurance Plans, concluded that premiums would rise 18 percent more under provisions of a Senate bill than they would otherwise in the next decade, to an average of nearly $26,000 for families and $9,700 for individuals in 2019. The White House dismissed the study as “deeply flawed” and noted that it did not account for subsidies in the bill to help people who could not afford insurance.
Here are some startling facts the insurance companies may have been right back in 2009:
- Insurance premiums for some consumers in Maryland will go up by as much as 25 percent once ObamaCare takes full effect later this year. The cheapest policy available to a 25-year-old in Maryland will cost roughly $114 per month, according to the state’s rate filings. That’s among the cheapest rates in the country for a comparable policy, even though it still represents an increase compared with bare-bones policies on the market today.
- Obamacare premiums in Florida are growing by 13.2 percent on average, state officials announced. Eight plans on the Obamacare exchange are boosting their premiums, all by double digits — from 11 percent to 23 percent. Three health plans will cut rates by a lesser five percent to 12 percent. That’s a drastic increase for close to one million Florida Obamacare customers — the second-largest enrollment of any individual state. The Florida Office of Insurance Regulation noted that just as premiums are increasing, out-of-pocket costs are adding up as well — and federal subsidies may not take much of the edge off for working families.
- A report released by the Society of Actuaries indicates that Obamacare will significantly raise medical claims costs, because of many factors, but one of the big ones is simply sicker people entering the insurance market due to Obamacare’s elimination of such things as medical underwriting and pre-existing condition exclusions. That, in turn, will result in higher premiums, but most notable for the individual insurance market, says the report. The report claims that for the nation as a whole, those costs will raise the premiums in the individual insurance market by 32 percent per person by 2017. According to the report, Pennsylvania’s individual insurance market could see an average hike of 28 percent, assuming the state expands its Medicaid program.
- The Kaiser Family Foundation and the Health Research and Educational Trust reports that between 2010 and 2011, family premiums increased by 9 percent and for individual premiums by 8 percent. According to the survey, “The average premium for single coverage in 2011 is $452 per month or $5,429 per year … The average premium for family coverage is $1,256 per month or $15,073 per year.” According to Kaiser Family Foundation CEO Drew Altman, the President’s health care legislation was responsible for approximately 20 percent of the increase in premiums.
On January 21, 2009, Barack Obama stood on the steps of the U.S. Capitol and, in his inaugural address, pledged to America that he would “wield technology’s wonders to raise health care’s quality and lower its cost.” Well, we got Obamacare and we see where we are today!
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