April 4, 2018

U.S. Obamacare 2018 exchange enrollment drops 3 percent: CMS

Source: Reuters

About 11.8 million consumers nationwide enrolled in 2018 Obamacare exchange plans, a 3 percent drop from last year when 12.2 million consumers signed up, according to a final government tally released on Tuesday by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

The tally includes both sign-ups on the exchange run by the federal government for 39 states, which was released on a provisional basis late in 2017, and on the 12 other exchanges run by Washington, D.C. and the remaining states.

CMS said the average premium before tax credits in 2018 is $621 a month, an increase of more than 30 percent from last year.

However, those receiving tax credits - around 83 percent of consumers on Obamacare - will pay around $89 a month on average in premiums, the agency said. That is down 16 percent from $106 a month last year.



Read more: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/u-obamacare-2018-exchange-enrollment-drops-3-percent-020409908--sector.html

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The rest of the article is 3 reasons for this fall in enrollment: Trump, Trump, and Trump. (Who woulda guessed?)

(or Putin, Putin, Putin or any of a number of a long list of fuckheads who caused us to lose by a combined total of just 78,000 votes in 3 states)

* Getting rid of the $billions in federal cost-sharing subsidies, causing insurance companies to raise premiums yet more (the insurance companies have to provide those cost-sharing subsidies by law, regardless of whether they receive any money from the federal government for that purpose or not),

* Halving the length of the open enrollment period

* Cutting the federal advertising and outreach budget 90%