ObamaCare's Triple-Digit Premium Hikes Dramatize the Need for Repeal

Michael F. Cannon In 2010, the Obama administration excoriated health insurance companies for “rate hikes as high as 39 percent.” HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius wrote: This is unacceptable… President Obama has offered a health insurance reform proposal to help working families and small business owners.  It will hold insurance companies accountable by laying out common-sense rules of the road to keep premiums down… Reform will change the rules and help stop exorbitant increases. And the President’s plan will help reduce costs… According to the Chicago Sun-Times, that double-digit rate increase “helped dramatize the need for regulation.” That episode came to mind this morning when I read about a survey of health insurers that shows ObamaCare will neither “keep premiums down” nor “stop exorbitant increases” nor “reduce costs”: The survey, fielded by the conservative American Action Forum and made available to POLITICO, found that if the law’s insurance rules were in force, the premium for a relatively bare-bones policy for a 27-year-old male nonsmoker on the individual market would be nearly 190 percent higher… Most other studies have tried to estimate average premium increases, which have ranged anywhere from negligible to 85 percent and higher. This survey looks at individual examples in specific markets to show the itemized impact of the major Obamacare reforms… On average, premiums for individual policies for...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Authors: Source Type: blogs