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Posted by
Olog-hai
on Wed Aug 6 00:46:05 2014, in response to Universal Health Care is HERE in these USA! Apply Now. www.healthcare.gov, posted by SMAZ on Tue Oct 1 13:19:06 2013.
fiogf49gjkf0d Maily Dail
Obamacare rates to soar by as much as 23 percent in 2015- Rate hikes will vary from state to state next year, with Florida appearing hardest-hit so far
- Many insurers with more modest increases have been keeping rates down by limiting which doctors, hospitals and prescription drugs are covered
- California could see rates skyrocket if voters approve new authority for the insurance commissioner in November
- A federal court ruling, if it stands, would hike monthly costs by as much as $450 because the federal government would no longer be able to subsidize rates in 36 states
By David Martosko, U.S. Political Editor
Published: 11:04 EST, 5 August 2014 | Updated: 11:31 EST, 5 August 2014Sticker shock is around the corner for many Americans with government-brokered medical coverage, as insurance companies are beginning to apply their first-year costs to next year's premiums.
In the case of Florida, some consumers will pay as much as 23 percent more when their plans are renewed in the fall, according to the Florida Office of Insurance Regulation.
When that agency released its projections on Monday, 23 percent was the upper end of the bad news. But some consumers in the Sunshine State could see their premiums drop by 5 percent instead.
That's because many insurance companies have been controlling costs by limiting the number of doctors, hospitals and prescription drugs their plans will cover in 2015.
The average in Florida will come out to a 13.2 percent hike.
The numbers in virtually every state are all across the board, with the biggest rate hikes announced to date coming in states where the federal government runs the Obamacare marketplaces.
States like California, which runs its own exchange, appear to be escaping with more modest increases for 2015. Its regulators have announced a 4.2 percent 'weighted average' hike.
That percentage itself could be hiding a spread of rate increases and decreases similar to Florida's.
Covered California, the state's Obamacare exchange, said on July 31 that 13 percent of the state's consumers would see hikes of 8 percent 'or more' next year.
The Los Angeles Times reported that some rates in Los Angeles are expected to rise by 16 percent.
But the worst news in California is yet to come: Dave Jones, the state's insurance commissioner, said current numbers are 'merely a pause in the double-digit rate increases we've seen historically.'
In November voters will consider Proposition 45, a measure that would expand Jones's authority to set insurance rates.
Insurers, Jones told the Times, may be holding rates down in anticipation of the new system, provided it passes.
Complicating things further is a recent ruling from the Federal Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C. that found it's illegal for the government to extend health insurance subsidies to consumers in states that didn't set up their own exchanges.
If the decision stands, people in 36 states would likely see their out-of-pocket expenses skyrocket.
The subsidies amount to as much as $450 per month in some states like Wyoming and Mississippi. Residents of Utah and Tennessee would lose the least, an average of about $150 per month.
A separate court ruled the same day that those subsidies are constitutional. The Obama administration is appealing the ruling it disagrees with.
Any increase, no matter how modest, will likely bring catcalls from conservatives and other Republicans.
President Barack Obama promised Americans during his 2008 presidential campaign — and long afterward — that his Affordable Care Act law would bring health care savings of $2,500 per family each year, on average, by the end of his first term in office.
He also promised on dozens of occasions that Americans could 'keep their health care plans' if they wanted to.
That promise quickly vanished as insurers sent millions of cancellation notices since existing plans often didn't conform to the lengthy and byzantine collection of mandatory benefits Congress decided every American must have.
Those requirements, as much as any other factor, have driven up costs.
Some opinion-shapers are beginning to dissect the reasons for rate hikes, and new taxes are part of the picture.
Obamacare will 'result in insurance plans being taxed more than $100 billion between 2014 and 2022,' the right-leaning Las Vegas Review-Journal editorial board wrote on July 23, 'with the Congressional Budget Office concluding that the taxes "would be largely passed through to consumers in the form of higher premiums for private coverage".'
The Review-Journal has called for a complete repeal of the law.
In a CNN poll released July 23, twice as many Americans say the law has hurt them compared with those who say it helped.
'Thirty-five percent of Americans told pollsters that Obamacare has made them and their families worse off. Just 18 percent believe they are better off.
Forty-six percent, almost half of Americans, say the law has made no difference in their lives.
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