“Across the country, Americans are facing substantially higher costs under the Affordable Care Act.
In most states, health insurance premiums on the individual marketplace are rising by double digits under Obamacare. Seventeen states will face average premium increases of 20 percent or more. Iowans, for instance, will see their premiums spike by 22 percent this year. In Minnesota, Alaska, Tennessee, and Hawaii, rates will rise by 30 percent or more.
Want to know where your state ranks? Type a state into the search bar to view the average rate hike and the range of premium changes individuals purchasing insurance on the individual market will face. You can also sort or export the data.” - 2016 Obamacare Premium Increase Tracker, 01/10/2016, freedom partners.org
Below is the link to the entire article. You can search any state’s ACA/Obamacare average price increase and the statistics also denote the low and high regarding price increases:
http://freedompartners.org/latest-news/2016-obamacare-premium-increases/
“There’s plenty of reason for free marketers to be skeptical of proposals, like the ones emanating from Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders and hinted at by Republican Donald Trump, that would create a single-payer healthcare coverage system in the United States.
But, if only because these proposals have resonance with the public, they’re certainly worth debating. A rational debate depends on getting the facts straight and there’s one fact that both left and right often get wrong: “single payer” healthcare of the sort Bernie Sanders proposes isn’t universal in the developed world and the US system isn’t particularly free-market by the standards of peer nations.
Although definitions vary slightly, a single payer healthcare system is one where a single entity — a government-run insurance plan — pays all bills for a variety of medical care, and private payment for these same services is more-or-less banned.
Among the G-7 countries, only one nation, Canada, actually maintains such a system. One other, Italy, has a pretty similar system but allows much more private payment, and, because of the low standards of public hospitals, nearly everyone who can afford private insurance carries it.” - No, the Rest of the World Doesn't Use "Single Payer", Foundation for Economic Education, 01/21/2016
Link to the entire article appears below:
http://fee.org/anythingpeaceful/the-rest-of-the-world-doesnt-use-single-payer/?mkt_tok=3RkMMJWWfF9wsRokuq7LZKXonjHpfsX87ukrX6ag38431UFwdcjKPmjr1YIITMB0aPyQAgobGp5I5FEBS7TYRKtst6cMUwemXSjrtqDIZoxAZZ13gZgz
“Today, Democrats in Congress and the Obama administration are desperate to do something you may find surprising: give the insurance companies more than about $2.5 billion in bail out money.
That’s not a misprint. They want to take tax money from people who already think their premiums are too high and their coverage too skimpy and give it to the very “villains” they were excoriating only a few years ago.
Here’s the back story. Under a program called “risk corridor” insurance, the federal government pledged to redistribute money from insurers who made profits to insurers who incurred losses for a period of several years. The reason: the insurance industry was so uncertain about the outcome of the (Obamacare) health insurance exchanges that they insisted on a backup mechanism to protect themselves.
Yet last year’s appropriations bill, largely at the insistence of Sen. Marco Rubio, requires that the risk corridor payments be revenue neutral. In other words, any payment of funds to an insurance company suffering from a deficit must come from insurance companies who earned a profit. There can be no net transfer of taxpayer funds to the industry.
The problem is that in 2014 most of the carriers lost, and lost big. Blue Cross Blue Shield of Texas, for example, lost almost $400 million. United Healthcare, the nation’s largest private insurer announced the other day that it may pull out of the individual insurance company market altogether in 2017. For the coming year United Healthcare has announced that in most states it is ending all advertising and ceasing all broker commissions for plans sold in the Obamacare exchanges. Cigna just announced that it may leave the market as well.” - The Biggest Threat To Obamacare Is Already Written Into Law: No Insurance Industry Bailouts, forbes.com, 12/10/2016
Link to the entire article appears below:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/johngoodman/2015/12/10/the-biggest-threat-to-obamacare-is-already-written-into-law-no-insurance-industry-bailouts/#2715e4857a0b5f141b71712f
“Humana Inc. has added its name to the list of mega-medical insurers to report big problems under ObamaCare.
The Louisville, Ky.- based company does not expect to make enough money this year in premiums from individual plans to cover what it will pay out in claims, according to a regulatory filing made last week with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
Humana, which is being acquired by Aetna Inc., said it is still trying to figure out how big the gap will be. The company did say it has set aside a premium deficiency reserve – meaning, it’s setting aside money to help make up the difference.
Humana, which will provide a deeper dive into its 2016 outlook when it releases its fourth-quarter earnings on Feb. 10, said in the SEC filing that it expects membership to drop this year by 200,000 to 300,000. The decrease reflects plans sold under ObamaCare as well as older policies.
“We expect Humana will exit Health Insurance Exchange marketplaces in 2017 in light of this data, and focus on its Medicare Advantage book of business,” Leerink Partners analyst Ana Gupte said in a research note on Friday.” - Humana latest insurer to have big problems under ObamaCare, 01/13/2016, foxnews.com
Link to the entire story appears below:
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2016/01/13/humana-latest-insurer-to-have-big-problems-under-obamacare.html
‘President Obama on Friday vetoed legislation to repeal most of his signature health care law, saying the bill would do “harm” to millions of Americans.
The move was widely expected, after Republicans for the first time succeeded in sending an ObamaCare repeal bill to the president’s desk. The legislation that Obama vetoed also would cut federal funding for Planned Parenthood.
While Congress may try to override, Republicans do not currently have the votes to do so.
Republicans, though, say they met two goals by passing the bill: keeping a promise to voters in an election year, and showing their ability to repeal the health law if a Republican wins the presidency.
“This is the closest we have come to repealing ObamaCare,” House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., said Thursday.
As the next step, Ryan wants to work on a proposal to replace the health care law. As he said in a statement Wednesday, the goal is to lay the groundwork for repealing and replacing the law should a Republican win the presidency this November.
“It clears the path to repealing this law with a Republican president in 2017 and replacing it with a truly patient-centered health care system,” he said. “We will not back down from this fight to defend the sanctity of life and make quality health care coverage achievable for all Americans.”’ - Obama vetoes health law repeal bill, foxnews.com, 01/08/2016
Link to the entire article appears below:
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2016/01/08/obama-vetoes-health-law-repeal-bill.html
