Health experts see big price hikes for Obamacare

[riversedge]

Health experts see big price hikes for Obamacare

Premiums could rise more sharply in 2016.

By Paul Demko

5/30/15 7:04 AM EDT

The cost of Obamacare could rise for millions of Americans next year, with one insurer proposing a 50 percent hike in premiums, fueling the controversy about just how “affordable” the Affordable Care Act really is.

The eye-popping 50 percent hike by New Mexico insurer Blue Cross Blue Shield is an outlier, and state officials may not allow it to go through. But health insurance experts are predicting that premiums will rise more significantly in 2016 than in the first two years of Obamacare exchange coverage. In 2015, for example, premiums increased by an average of 5.4 percent, according to PwC’s Health Research Institute.

The premium increases come at a tenuous time for Obamacare, which remains under fire from a Republican Congress that wants to repeal the law, while a Supreme Court ruling on federal subsidies for the health insurance looms in June as well.

“Insurers seem to be reporting higher trend, which means they are seeing bigger increases in health care costs,” said Larry Levitt, senior vice president for special initiatives at the Kaiser Family Foundation. “But really what’s going on here is they now have data showing what the risk pool looks like. Initially in 2014 they were completely guessing about who was going to enroll and how much health care they were going to use.”

Many plans haven’t yet made public their proposed rates; Monday is the deadline for publishing and providing an explanation for rate hikes of at least 10 percent. None announced so far is as dramatic as the New Mexico plan, although a few others are also quite sharp. The Blues in Maryland and Tennessee, both with the largest market share on the exchanges in their states, are seeking increases of more than 30 percent. In Oregon, Moda Health Plan — which attracted more than 40 percent of exchange customers in 2015, despite competing against a dozen other health plans — is seeking average rate increases of 25 percent. Other plans released to date — including some in these four states — are seeking far more modest increases.

The reasons for the rising premiums are complex......................

[Sunlei]

1. Humana doubled my premium for the exact same ACA exchange policy off the DOTgov website.

I have not even used the insurance one time.

[Vinca]

2. This is exactly why the public option was needed.

Big insurance has their prey trapped and now they're going in for the kill.

[Travis_0004]

5. If the medical loss ratio is capped at 80%, then they are not just trying to line their pockets

The profit they can make is limited by the medical loss ratio, so doubling plan costs would not do any good, they would just have to refund the premium overpayments at the end of the year.

[Motown_Johnny]

7. Unless they invested in health care providers

like big hospitals.

There are not price caps. Simply funneling money into the profits into the providers in order to get their slice of the pie isn't surprising.

We need a public option and price controls.

[spinbaby]

12. Insurers should not be allowed to own hospitals

In Pittsburgh we have two major insurers who own two major hospital chains and they fight out their differences in TV commercials.

[TM99]

3. Really, who didn't see this coming?

The reasons are not complex. They are quite simple. We expanded a for-profit system and now force all Americans to buy into it or be penalized.

I wish I could be less cynical, but I see no way that this Heritage Care plan will ever magically morph into the public option.

[lamp_shade]

4. Link please. n/t

[krawhitham]

8. Here is one

http://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/health-care/item/17880-huge-increases-in-obamacare-premiums-are-coming

Huge Increases in ObamaCare Premiums Are Coming

This nearly-complete analysis finds that the average state will face underlying premium increases of 41 percent.

http://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/health-care/item/17880-huge-increases-in-obamacare-premiums-are-coming



And YES that is from LAST YEAR, dated Wednesday, 19 March 2014


But the one the OP is quoting is here
http://www.politico.com/story/2015/05/how-affordable-is-the-affordable-care-act-118428.html

[djean111]

6. Should be interesting as fuck - Walmart and the insurance companies, fighting over

our "disposable income". What on earth will they do, once the well has run dry?

[TheNutcracker]

9. cost sharing over estimated for silver not enough chose silver.

Under law you don't pay more than 9% of income. So subsidies will be increased as well. Such a giveaway to insurance co. It should go to health facilities!

[Habibi]

10. I got the best available coverage I could afford

for 2015, and just got a notice from the insurer (Health Republic) that they will be seeking an increase to $457 from $356. I don't qualify for subsidies. I will have to find a plan next year that will offer cheaper premiums but higher deductibles and co-insurance, something I wanted to avoid as I've been hospitalized a couple of times in the last 3 years.

Honestly, at this point, a "catastrophic"-type plan makes more sense to me than the other crap plans available. At least I wouldn't have to pay through the nose for essentially nothing.

[jwirr]

11. Won't raising the premium costs just push more people and families into expanded Medicaid?