Texas Insider Report: WASHINGTON DC As first reported by the Associated Press premiums for certain mid-level plans offered on Obamacares federal exchanges will be going up by double digits and many people will be stuck with just one insurer. And that news isnt coming from some conservative think-tank -- its coming from the Obama Administration itself.
These are not just small cost increases either.
As an example unsubsidized premiums for a hypothetical 27-year-old in Arizona could jump from $196 to an astonishing $422 if that person bought a benchmark second-lowest cost silver plan."
Before subsidies premiums for benchmark plans will increase an average of 25 across 39 states. Some states will see a lower increase some higher. Additionally 1-in-5 customers will only be able to take a plan from one insurer after major insurers like UnitedHealth Group
Humana and Aetna have decreased their roles in Obamacare.
Cant say no one warned us about this.
While subsidies are available under the law an estimated 5-7 million people either dont qualify for income-based assistance or they buy individual policies that are outside Obamacares markets which means they dont qualify for the subsidies.
If that same person hypothetical 27-year-old in Arizona from above only made about $25000 a year then about $280 of that payment could be subsidized (i.e. picked up by the taxpayers). However that subsidy significantly decreases if that person makes even $30000 - $40000 annually putting a huge squeeze on the middle class.
Also as widely reported earlier in the year there are plenty of cases of people slipping through the cracks" and simply not getting their subsidies.
That again is all according to a report by the Obama Administration itself.
Choice in insurers is another issue. There will be about a 28 decrease in the total number of insurers under Obamacare from 232 this year to just 167 next year.
The caveat to that however is that insurers are counted multiple times if they offer coverage in more than one state. So for example Humana or Aetna would count once for each state in which their plans are offered.
Despite all this President Obama has continued to simply call these growing pains" for his signature law. As a solution the Obama administration has suggested expanding Medicaid and calling for a government-run public option" that was so hotly debated when the law was first being introduced in 2009. Democrats have routinely tried to insist that Obamacare is and will always be affordable. So much so that now-House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi once used the word affordable" 14 times in a press conference to try and drive the point home.
Americans dont seem to be buying into this spin anymore. On top of the 11 of people who are still uninsured the idea that Obamacare can be affordable has almost become a punchline. Recently a crowd laughed during a congressional debate when a Democrat claimed that Obamacare was affordable.
Even Bill Clinton himself has called it a crazy system."
It can all be summed up best however by Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) who chairs the Senate Committee that oversees the law. He recently stated that all these bad numbers arent all too surprising and that this does little to dispel the notion we are seeing the law implode at the expense of middle-class families."
