Ohio: Proof that Obamacare ‘Rate Shock’ Is Real
The so-called rate shock from Obamacare has hit Ohio. The state’s Department of Insurance announced last Thursday that, based on rates submitted by insurers to date, it estimates the average individual-market health insurance premium in 2014 will cost approximately $420, “representing an increase of 88 percent” compared to 2013.“We have warned of these increases,” said Lt. Gov. Mary Taylor in the accompanying press release. “Consumers will have fewer choices and pay much higher premiums for their health insurance starting in 2014.”...
Coverage may be unaffordable for low-wage workers
It's called the Affordable Care Act, but President Barack Obama's health care law may turn out to be unaffordable for many low-wage workers, including employees at big chain restaurants, retail stores and hotels.
That might seem strange since the law requires medium-sized and large employers to offer "affordable" coverage or face fines.
But what's reasonable? Because of a wrinkle in the law, companies can meet their legal obligations by offering policies that would be too expensive for many low-wage workers. For the employee, it's like a mirage — attractive but out of reach....
...It might have turned out differently, added Trautwein, if Democrats had followed traditional congressional practice and taken the House and Senate versions of the bill to a conference committee. They could have worked out such quirks. But leaders determined that path was fraught with political peril after Democrats lost their 60-vote Senate majority in 2010....
Why Docs Are Bailing Out of Health Insurance
...The ACA, known as Obamacare, was passed on promises that premiums would decline by forcing everyone into insurance plans, and that top-down mechanisms like mandates on coverage and the Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB) would control costs. That hasn’t proven to be the case, and indeed, both premiums and costs are skyrocketing – just as anyone who understood the impact that mandates would have on risk pools and tax hikes on prices predicted.
As the open enrollment period for 2014 approaches, premiums on individual plans in the Obamacare exchanges for California will double, and will increase 80 percent or more in Ohio. At the end of its first decade in force, the ACA will leave more than 30 million Americans without insurance – the driving issue behind health-care reform for at least the last twenty years....
...Americans buying plans on the individual market have to spend much more than they’ll ever pay directly to market-based physicians like Nunamaker, essentially subsidizing the premiums of older and sicker Americans to make Obamacare politically palatable to those demographics who turn out more reliably to vote. Americans purchasing plans through employers won’t have much more luck buying sensible insurance plans, either, thanks to other mandates within the ACA on employer-provided health insurance.
This limits the potential for physicians like Nunamaker, but it doesn’t bother him. He earns around $200,000 a year from his cash-only practice, but more importantly, he gets to focus on treating patients rather than fulfilling insurance-company demands. His patients get to make decisions on care based on real costs and market-based price signals, not on which insurer covers the routine costs for far more than the care itself would usually cost. Nunamaker tells CNN that his practice is “the best it’s been in my 26-year career – by far.” He’s not alone, either. A survey by Medscape finds that 6 percent of physicians operate on a cash-only basis, up from 4 percent in 2012. ...
Obamacare? We were just leaving …
Dozens of lawmakers and aides are so afraid that their health insurance premiums will skyrocket next year thanks to Obamacare that they are thinking about retiring early or just quitting.
The fear: Government-subsidized premiums will disappear at the end of the year under a provision in the health care law that nudges aides and lawmakers onto the government health care exchanges, which could make their benefits exorbitantly expensive.
Democratic and Republican leaders are taking the issue seriously, but first they need more specifics from the Office of Personnel Management on how the new rule should take effect — a decision that Capitol Hill sources expect by fall, at the latest. The administration has clammed up in advance of a ruling, sources on both sides of the aisle said.
If the issue isn’t resolved, and massive numbers of lawmakers and aides bolt, many on Capitol Hill fear it could lead to a brain drain just as Congress tackles a slew of weighty issues — like fights over the Tax Code and immigration reform....
