Showing posts with label
rising health insurance premiums.
Show all posts
Showing posts with label
rising health insurance premiums.
Show all posts
“For the 85% of enrollees with lower incomes, federal subsidies make the premiums somewhat more affordable. Those even closer to the poverty line can get additional subsidies that reduce the deductibles, which can run into the thousands of dollars.
But for many middle class Americans -- a single person earning more than $47,520 or a family of four with an income of $97,200 -- the pricey premiums and deductibles mean health care coverage remains out of reach.
"The middle class are getting squeezed," said Larry Levitt, senior vice president at the Kaiser Family Foundation. "They aren't getting subsidies and these deductibles are hard to afford."
This schism is turning Obamacare into another government benefit program for lower- and moderate-income Americans. The typical enrollee has an income of only 165% of the federal poverty level, or $40,000 for a family of four.
The real problem is that health care is very expensive, Levitt said. But most Americans don't realize the true cost because they are shielded by their employers.
Some 150 million people have insurance through work, paying only about $440 a month for a family plan, while employers cover the rest, or about $1,075.” - Is Obamacare really affordable? Not for the middle class, Obamacare is now a tale of two health insurance programs, CNN money, 11/04/2016
Note: The seen and unseen regarding the above, the unseen as it were, might well be found in Director’s Law, political constituency building with other people's money and the backfiring (unintended negative cascading consequences) of the conjunction of both concepts. How so? (1)
Reviewing Director’s Law:
Director's law states that the bulk of public programs are designed primarily to benefit the middle classes but are financed by taxes paid primarily by the upper and lower classes. The empirically derived law was first proposed by economist Aaron Director.
The philosophy of Director's law is that, based on the size of its population and its aggregate wealth, the middle class will always be the dominant interest group in a modern democracy. As such, it will use its influence to maximize the state benefits it receives and minimize the portion of costs it bears. (2) (3)
Hence if in the main and upon normal occasion ACA/Obamacare is viewed as a program to benefit the middle class, then the benefit thereof could easily be considered as: Particular politicos exercising political constituency building with other peoples money. That is, yet another middle class benefit at the expense of other taxpayers which leads to a political constituency wanting the continuation of the benefit and therefore reliance upon (support/voting for) the sponsoring politicos of such program.
The problem then becomes: Much of the middle class, rather than benefiting, are being pummeled by skyrocketing premiums along with high deductibles and high co-insurance payments.
In the end, a middle class benefit (Director’s Law) meaningfully and purposefully deployed as a political constituency building exercise by particular politicos with other people's money, backfires. Backfires as a vast swath of the middle class fails to benefit and actually experiences rising prices.
The supposed political constituency developed by the politico becomes an advisory political constituency.
Notes:
(1) http://www.econlib.org/library/Bastiat/basEss1.html
(2) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Director%27s_law
(3) https://www.jstor.org/stable/724835?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents
"Way back in 2009, some folks on the left shared a chart showing that national expenditures on healthcare compared to life expectancy.
This comparison was not favorable to the United States, which easily spent the most money but didn’t have concomitantly impressive life expectancy.
At the very least, people looking at the chart were supposed to conclude that other nations had better healthcare systems.
And since the chart circulated while Obamacare was being debated, supporters of that initiative clearly wanted people to believe that the U.S. somehow could get better results at lower cost if the government played a bigger role in the healthcare sector.
There were all sorts of reasons to think that chart was misleading (higher average incomes in the United States, more obesity in the United States, different demographics in the United States, etc), but my main gripe was that the chart was being used to advance the cause of bigger government when it actually showed – at least in part – the consequences of government intervention.
The real problem, I argued, was third-party payer. Thanks to programs such as Medicare and Medicaid, government already was paying for nearly 50 percent of all heath spending in the United States (indeed, the U.S. has more government spending for health programs than some nations with single-payer systems!).
But that’s just part of the story. Thanks to a loophole in the tax code for fringe benefits (a.k.a., the healthcare exclusion), there’s a huge incentive for both employers and employees to provide compensation in the form of very generous health insurance policies. And this means a big chunk of health spending is paid by insurance companies.
The combination of these direct and indirect government policies is that consumers pay very little for their healthcare. Or, to be more precise, they may pay a lot in terms of taxes and foregone cash compensation, but their direct out-of-pocket expenditures are relatively modest.
And this is why I said the national health spending vs life expectancy chart was far less important than a chart I put together showing the relentless expansion of third-party payer. And the reason this chart is so important is that it helps to explain why healthcare costs are so high and why there’s so much inefficiency in the health sector."
- Another Grim Reminder that Obamacare Has Made Healthcare More Expensive, FEE, 08/30/2016.
Link to the entire essay appears below:
https://fee.org/articles/another-grim-reminder-that-obamacare-has-made-healthcare-more-expensive/#0
“Obamacare enrollees will pay more next year, as new data found a roughly 10 percent increase on all types of marketplace plans.
The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation released datasets on average premiums for 2015 and 2016 on Wednesday. The data showed that every tier of Obamacare plans — bronze, silver and gold — raised average premiums by about 10 percent in 2016 from 2015.
Gold plans had the largest increase with 11 percent, while bronze came in with 10 percent and silver with just under 10 percent, the foundation data shows.” - Obamacare enrollees face higher premiums next year, Washington Examiner, 12/16/2015
Link to the entire article appears below:
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/obamacare-enrollees-face-higher-premiums-next-year/article/2578518
"Californians are split over a high-profile voter initiative that opponents say could complicate the future of President Barack Obama ’s health-care law in one of the states that has gone furthest to embrace it.
Proposition 45 would grant California’s insurance commissioner new powers to veto health-insurance premium increases for individual and small-group policies, a popular sentiment in a state that has seen large rate jumps in the past, though they have recently moderated.
Some prominent Democrats, including Sens. Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer, have endorsed the measure, which would also grant citizens and outside groups the power to delay health-insurance rate increases by requesting a government review.
The measure is strongly opposed by health insurers, who have donated tens of millions of dollars to defeat it. Opponents say the measure could hamper efforts to further implement the health-care law in California, which spent more time and money than any other state building its insurance exchange, Covered California. They say Covered California’s power to negotiate with insurers on behalf of consumers would be weakened, and that federal subsidies could be hard to price for many of the low-income people who dominate the exchange.
“It starts to raise very serious questions about the certainty of what Covered California will be able to negotiate with the insurance companies…and even whether some plans will be available,” said Rep. George Miller (D., Calif.), one of the Affordable Care Act’s co-authors. “The problem is Prop 45 was written before we got to the final stages here” of the ACA.
Prop 45 was originally drafted for the 2012 election, but the measure failed to qualify for the ballot in time. Since then, Covered California has become the most robust exchange in the country, signing up 1.4 million people during the last enrollment period.
The new powers under Prop 45 would broadly enhance the influence of Dave Jones, the Democratic state insurance commissioner. Since taking office in 2011, he has said that a missing piece of the health law was the lack of authority to reject insurance rate increases."
- Californians Split Over Letting Official Veto Insurers’ Rate Boosts, WSJ, 10/09/2014
Link to the entire article appears below:
http://online.wsj.com/articles/californians-split-over-letting-official-veto-insurers-rate-boosts-1412803775?KEYWORDS=california+health
‘Floridians who buy health insurance on the individual market for next year will face an average increase of 13.2 percent in their monthly premiums, according to rate proposals unveiled Monday by the state’s Office of Insurance Regulation.
The rate proposals affect all Affordable Care Act-compliant health plans on the individual market, whether they’re sold through the federally-run exchange or not. Small and large group health plans typically offered by employers were not included in the data released by the state.
Fourteen companies filed ACA-compliant plans for Florida’s 2015 individual market, including three new companies that did not participate on the federally-run exchange last year.
Of the 11 returning plans, eight filed average rate increases ranging from 11 to 23 percent, and three filed rate decreases ranging from 5 to 12 percent, the state’s insurance regulator reported.’
‘About 893,000 people or 91 percent of Floridians who bought coverage on the exchange also receive a federal subsidy to lower their share of the premium, according to federal data.
According to the state report released Monday, most insurers propose double-digit premium increases, including the state's largest health insurer, Florida Blue, which announced last week that premiums would increase by an average of 17.6 percent for its exchange plans.
Health First Insurance, which sold 15 types of plans on the ACA exchange in 2014, proposed an average increase of 23 percent for its PPOs plans next year — the highest jump of all companies offering coverage on the individual market, according to the state.
Humana, which offers 35 plans on the ACA exchange, proposed increasing average monthly premiums for its HMO by about 14 percent.
Nancy Hanewinckel, a Humana spokeswoman, said in a written statement that the proposed increases were “primarily driven by underlying cost of services, including physician and provider fees; health care utilization; and increased prescription drug costs, particularly the fast-growing use of high-cost specialty medications, such as Sovaldi for Hepatitis C.’’
Joe Mondy, a spokesman for Cigna, said the company’s proposed 17 percent rate increase was “based on our customers’ 2014 early clinical experience and claims payments, expected medical trend, along with other factors such as the phase out of the government reinsurance program and expectations on the changing risk pool in 2015.’’
Most insurers echoed the explanations from Cigna and Humana — attributing increases to higher-than-expected health costs as a result of attracting customers who previously lacked coverage and are using more services than expected.
They also blamed regulations mandated under the health law, which forbids insurance companies from denying people with pre-existing conditions, limits the amount that they can charge their oldest members, and no longer allows them to charge more for women than men.
A dearth of young and healthy enrollees also has contributed to the increases, Florida Blue officials said last week. About 30 percent of the 984,000 Floridians who signed up for a plan on the exchange is younger than 35, according to federal data.’ - Proposed prices for health plans in 2015 unveiled, Miamiherald.com, 08/04/2014
Link to the entire article appears below:
http://www.miamiherald.com/2014/08/04/4271376/proposed-prices-for-health-plans.html
“States are nailing down dates to release 2015 premium costs under ObamaCare, and their decisions will guarantee a drumbeat of news about rate hikes all the way to the November midterm elections.
Democrats are bracing for grim headlines that could put the unpopular law back at the forefront of voters’ minds.
Premiums are expected to go up in a majority of states, as they do every year, but the size of the increases could go a long way toward determining how much political damage ObamaCare inflicts on vulnerable Democratic lawmakers.
A survey by The Hill of state insurance commissioners found that news about ObamaCare premiums will hit nearly every week this summer (see list below), providing ample opportunity for Republicans to attack any significant premium hikes.”
“PREMIUM RATES, STATE BY STATE
The following is a list of responses from states on when they plan to release insurance premium rates. Dates are subject to change. Sixteen states did not respond or did not specify a date.
May
Maryland
Montana (May 27 or later)
Maine (May 30)
Connecticut (May 31)
Ohio (by May 31)
June
Colorado
Rhode Island
Kansas (June 1 and available via records request)
North Dakota (June 6)
Michigan (June 9)
Delaware (June 13)
South Dakota (June 15)
Louisiana (June 27)
July
Florida (end of the month, or early August)
August
Nevada (Aug. 1)
Nebraska (mid-month)
Wisconsin (late in the month)
Massachusetts (Aug. 15)
North Carolina (no earlier than Aug. 15)
September
Tennessee
West Virginia (available via records request)
Arkansas (Sept. 10)
November
New Jersey (Nov. 15)
January 2015
New Hampshire (Jan. 1)
Will not release rates
Idaho
Iowa
Missouri
Wyoming
No response,
or no month given
Alabama
Alaska
California
Georgia
Hawaii
Illinois
Minnesota
Mississippi
New Mexico
New York
Oklahoma
Oregon
Pennsylvania
South Carolina
Texas (will release rates that rise by more than 10 percent via public records request, no month or date given)
Utah
Already released,
in full or in part
Arizona
Indiana
Kentucky
Vermont
Virginia
Washington” - Premium hike drumbeat before elections, The Hill, 05/22/2014
Link to the entire article appears below:
http://thehill.com/regulation/healthcare/206901-premium-hike-drumbeat-before-nov-election-day
