Report: New Evidence Of Rising 'Obamacare' Premiums

[Purveyor]

WASHINGTON (AP) — Premiums for popular low-cost medical plans under the federal health care law are expected to go up an average of 11 percent next year, said a study that reinforced reports of sharp increases around the country in election season.

For consumers, the impact will depend on whether they get government subsidies for their premiums, as well as on their own willingness to switch plans to keep the increases more manageable, said the analysis released Wednesday by the nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation.

The full picture on 2017 premiums will emerge later this summer as the presidential election heads into the home stretch. The health law's next sign-up season starts a week before Election Day. Democrat Hillary Clinton wants to build on President Barack Obama's health overhaul, which has reduced the uninsured rate to a historically low 9 percent. Republican Donald Trump wants to repeal it.

The Kaiser study looked at 14 metro areas for which complete data on insurer premium requests is already available. It found that premiums for a level of insurance called the "lowest-cost silver plan" will go up in 12 of the areas, while decreasing in two. The changes range from a decrease of 14 percent in Providence, Rhode Island, to an increase of 26 percent in Portland, Oregon.

Half of the cities will see increases of 10 percent or more. Last year, only two of the cities had double-digit increases.

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http://bigstory.ap.org/article/2e1d5fe5385d461f9db65e1faa47cc61/report-new-evidence-rising-obamacare-premiums

[KansDem]

1. BULLSHIT!

The premium increases come after major insurers reported significant losses on their health-care business. Enrollment was lower than hoped for, new customers were sicker than expected, and the government's system to help stabilize the markets had problems.

The insurance industry is second-to-none in demographic knowledge. Consider this exchange from the 1944 classic, "Double Indemnity"--

Barton Keyes: You know, you, uh, oughta take a look at the statistics on suicide some time. You might learn a little something about the insurance business.

Edward S. Norton: Mister Keyes, I was RAISED in the insurance business.

Barton Keyes: Yeah, in the front office. Come now, you've never read an actuarial table in your life, have you? Why they've got ten volumes on suicide alone. Suicide by race, by color, by occupation, by sex, by seasons of the year, by time of day. Suicide, how committed: by poison, by firearms, by drowning, by leaps. Suicide by poison, subdivided by *types* of poison, such as corrosive, irritant, systemic, gaseous, narcotic, alkaloid, protein, and so forth; suicide by leaps, subdivided by leaps from high places, under the wheels of trains, under the wheels of trucks, under the feet of horses, from *steamboats*. But, Mr. Norton, of all the cases on record, there's not one single case of suicide by leap from the rear end of a moving train. And you know how fast that train was going at the point where the body was found? Fifteen miles an hour. Now how can anybody jump off a slow-moving train like that with any kind of expectation that he would kill himself? No. No soap, Mr. Norton. We're sunk, and we'll have to pay through the nose, and you know it.

Pretty thorough and I suspect it hasn't changed much. Now they tell us this--

The premium increases come after major insurers reported significant losses on their health-care business. Enrollment was lower than hoped for, new customers were sicker than expected, and the government's system to help stabilize the markets had problems.

Lower? Sicker? BULLSHIT!! They want us to believe they didn't know what they were getting into? BULLSHIT!!!

Ooo...ooo...we didn't know it would cost so much!

The CEOs just want more wealth from the sick injured--



They want more and will lie to get it.