Obamacare...The Good..Bad and the Ugly

[mr40]

Health Insurance Rates Skyrocket 31 Percent in Pennsylvania After Obamacare

Pennsylvania is set to see its health insurance premiums skyrocket by an average of nearly 31 percent in 2018, according to the state’s acting insurance commissioner.

Even though rate hikes have been de rigueur under Obamacare, acting Insurance Commissioner Jessica Altman tried to blame the astronomical increase on Republicans and the Trump administration.

“It is with great regret that I must announce approved rates that are substantially higher than what companies initially requested,“ Altman said in a news release. “This is not the situation I hoped we would be in, but due to President Trump’s refusal to make cost-sharing reduction payments for 2018 and Congress’s inaction to appropriate funds, it is the reality that state regulators must face and the reason rate increases will be higher than they should be across the country.”

According to The Washington Free Beacon, there are only five health insurers participating in Pennsylvania’s state marketplace next year. While the average increase in premiums for those insurers will be 30.6 percent, some were approved for much higher hikes.

Capital Advantage Assurance Company, one of the individual market participants, got a 49.2 percent rate increase through. UPMC Health Options received a 41.15 percent rate increase and Geisinger Health Plan got a rate increase slightly higher than the state average, at 31.28 percent.

The Pennsylvania Insurance Department claims that “(r)ates reflect estimates of future costs, including medical and prescription drug costs and administrative expenses, and are based on historical data and forecasts of trends in the upcoming year.

“The Department considers these factors, as well as factors such as the insurer’s revenues, actual and projected profits, past rate changes, and the effect the change will have on Pennsylvania consumers.”

(The department avoids mentioning “Obamacare” by name, but anyone following the news knows why rates are going up.)

According to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 85,000 individuals on the exchanges in Pennsylvania will be affected by the higher rates, while the other 426,000 who use it won’t see increases due to subsidies.

While the Insurance Department blames the Trump administration for the massive increase over the projected rate increase of 7.6 percent, let’s face facts: This isn’t the first state to miss its Obamacare rate increase goals.

Last year, the Free Beacon points out, the Obama administration predicted double digit rate hikes across the board on the exchanges.

“Nationwide, average Marketplace premiums for 2017 are increasing more than they have in the past two years,” the Obama administration said at the time. “For the median HealthCare.gov consumer, the benchmark second-lowest silver plan premium is increasing by 16 percent this year, before taking into account the effects of financial assistance.”

While Pennsylvania might want to blame the Trump administration, the Kaiser Foundation noted that these rate increases are mostly to do with the fact that insurers are experiencing massive losses on them.

We doubt this will be the last state to see massive rate hikes, and we doubt it will be the last to blame it on the Trump administration. The fact is that Obamacare is a failing program, and the sooner it’s eradicated, the sooner we won’t have to see these rate hikes.

https://conservativetribune.com/health-insurance-pennsylvania/?utm_source=Email&utm_medium=minutemennews&utm_campaign=dailypm&utm_content=libertyalliance