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Trump’s Threats Already Pushing ACA Premiums Up

Donald Trump is causing insurers in the Affordable Care Act individual market to raise their premiums more than they would if the federal government simply enforced the ACA as is:

Insurers assuming the individual mandate will not be enforced have factored in to their rate increases an additional 1.2% to 20%. Those assuming cost-sharing subsidy payments will not continue and factoring this into their initial rate requests have applied an additional rate increase ranging from 2% to 23%. Because cost-sharing reductions are only available in silver plans, insurers may seek to raise premiums just in those plans if the payments end. We estimate that silver premiums would have to increase by 19% on average to compensate for the loss of CSR payments, with the amount varying substantially by state [Rabah Kamal et al., “An Early Look at 2018 Premium Changes and Insurer Participation on ACA Exchanges,” Kaiser Family Foundation, 2017.08.10].

ACA tax credits will protect many marketplace policyholders from those premium increases, just as the tax credits have protected them from the increases that Noem, Rounds, and Thune keep mistakenly bleating about. The costs are distributed among taxpayers… but the fact is that insurers are having to spend more money to maintain their business model due to the uncertainty introduced by Trump.

As PBS notes, Trump has yet to deliver anything in the direction of the promise he made in January to provide “much less expensive and much better” health care and “insurance for everybody.”

4 Comments

  1. jerry 2017-08-11 09:09

    Keep voting for the Cult and keep paying for that prostitute. Cracks me up to see the stupid. Last year, a 60 year old married man with two kids paid over $24,000.00 a year for their high deductible health insurance because they as a whole earned just over $60,000.00 a year for adjusted gross income (no subsidy for you). This year, add another 20% to 40% onto that. Damn, that is a lot of money that could go into the state’s economy, but we will always have the Rally to make the state wealthy, no?

    For those who think the insurance companies pocketed that, they did not. They are under law to pay 80% of that premium for claims. With Rounds/Thune/NOem/ and soon, the little June bug herself, Krebs in Washington, expect more of the same. Call them and thank them for their support for you on a job well done. It is only money right?
    VOTE THE CULT, EXPECT THE SAME RESULT

  2. Porter Lansing 2017-08-11 10:50

    Rate Increases Before Obamacare Were Out Of Control – Overview
    Looking at trends in private employer-based health insurance from 2003 to 2013, this issue brief finds that premiums for family coverage increased 73 percent over the past decade—faster than median family income. Employees’ contributions to their premiums climbed by 93 percent over that time frame. At the same time, deductibles more than doubled in both large and small firms. Workers are thus paying more but getting less protective benefits. However, the study also finds that while premiums continued to rise through 2013, the rate of growth slowed between 2010 and 2013, following implementation of the Affordable Care Act.
    http://www.commonwealthfund.org/publications/issue-briefs/2014/dec/national-trends-employer-coverage

  3. jerry 2017-08-11 12:53

    Indeed Porter, they were a runaway. At least now, if you are a family of 4 and you earn less than 60 grand a year, you get a subsidy for your health insurance. Makes you wonder why anyone with that family status would want to earn 60 thousand or more a year as you pay almost half of it for health insurance.

    Take some time off, relax, lower your stress that is what our cult gang in Washington is telling us. Make sure that your line 37 on your 1040 is at the most 45,000.00 per year and you will be fine. For those of us who earn much less than that, say around 25,000.00 with that family of 4, Bingo! Lesson learned is money earned by playing it smart.

  4. jerry 2017-08-11 17:31

    Take a look at the 3 billion Rounds and Thune will increase the federal governments cost by these threats. These cult guys clearly do not understand the schematics of how good the legislation was to protect the insureds of this country. http://www.kff.org/health-reform/issue-brief/the-effects-of-ending-the-affordable-care-acts-cost-sharing-reduction-payments/?cn=bWVzc2FnZQ%3D%3D&refsrc=email There is an old Chinese saying “Before you embark on a journey of revenge, dig two graves.” ― Confucius
    South Dakota taxpayers, how is this winning going for ya?

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