News About Obamacare Has Been Bad Lately. How Bad?

[Yo_Mama]

22. And in just a couple of years, the subsidies start getting cut.

That's a provision in the law that few know about, but what it says is that subsidy increase is limited to GDP growth.

The theory was that this law would lower the actual COST of health insurance, but instead it has greatly increased it, and the increases show no signs of slowing down.

Therefore, in a few more years it is possible that those with subsidies will be paying ever larger portions of their income for health insurance premiums, and it is very hard to see that as substainable.

Here's a CBO write-up of that provision:
http://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/files/cbofiles/ftpdocs/121xx/doc12188/05-12-subsidies_in_exchanges.pdf

Exactly how and when that will kick off is uncertain, because it depends on GDP growth and how many persons are receiving subsidies. The limit is about 1/2 a percent of gross GDP.

Thus, if the economy is doing poorly, subsidized individuals and families would have to pick up more of the premium cost than if the economy is doing well.

There's a lot of uncertainty in this, but the point is that those subsidies are not going to stay equivalent to those we now have for another decade:
http://kff.org/health-reform/fact-sheet/analysis-of-2016-premium-changes-in-the-affordable-care-acts-health-insurance-marketplaces/