Federal officials said Monday that the price of the second-lowest-cost midrange “silver plan”—a key metric for premiums around the country—will increase by 7.5% on average across the three-dozen states that rely on Washington to administer the health law for them. WSJ 10/27/2015
7.5% is how many times general inflation?
The above is the average and only for one category of plans. Many increases are in double digits, some as high as 30% or more.
But not to worry, consumers won’t face the problem of picking up this increase, for most enrolled in a Obamacare exchange the government er … that’s you, will pay the cost via higher premium subsidies.
Are insurers ripping us off? On the contrary these premiums reflect the cost of claims caused by adverse selection, enrolling people with pre-existing conditions, a shortage of younger healthier Americans enrolling, rising health care costs in general and the failure of government to come through with the risk subsidies for plans experiencing higher than average utilization.
If you stand back and take a good look you will see Obamacare never was designed to make health care affordable, but rather to make it more affordable to those who receive heavy government subsidies (and still falling short). For everyone else, it is making health care less affordable. And for many, especially for working Americans including union and government workers, the worst is yet to come.
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