Double Digit Premium Increases Planned Under ObamaCare

After nothing but disastrous stories of ObamaCare’s failures from its beginning with the roll out of healthcare.gov, as the law is in threat we’re bombarded with stories that millions will lose their insurance, and thousands will die as a result.

It’s an interesting way to deflect from the fact that  Barack Obama over-promised and under-delivered. Let’s just take a look at some of them….

  • Obama said on numerous occasions that nobody would lose coverage thanks to ObamaCare, as “if you like your plan, you can keep your plan.” Even the center-left Politifact rated that their 2013 “Lie Of The Year.”
  • Obama told us that his healthcare plan would magically reduce the deficit, based on some misleading projections. Since ObamaCare was signed into law in 2010 (and began collecting taxes to pay for it then), but didn’t take effect until 2014, projections showed the law reducing the deficit its first decade after being signed. And of course they did, as these projections were working in a scenario where the government gets to collect taxes for ten years to pay for six years of a program. The money is already getting close to running out, as according to The Daily WireObamacare will “result in trillion-dollar deficits in seven years’ time” and that the “Congressional Budget Office warned that the debt could be as high as $30 trillion by 2030, with Obamacare being one of the driving factors behind that increase.”
  • We’re told that 36,000 would die due to lack of insurance in absence of ObamaCare, but mortality rates increased following the passage of ObamaCare. According to one study, “This [the increase in mortality] is equivalent to an excess 11,000 annual U.S. adult deaths relative to the pre-Obamacare steady state trends, and more than 32,000 annual deaths greater than predicted by academic studies quantifying health benefits from improved insurance coverage.”

And more relevant to some recent news, Obama promised that the average family would save $2,500 a year thanks to ObamaCare, when in reality they’ve seen their premiums increase that much since then.

And just today, we’re learning that thanks to ObamaCare, insurance companies have double-digit premium increases planned again this year.

Health insurers in Washington, D.C., Oregon, and Vermont have requested double-digit premium rate increases for Obamacare plans next year, according to state and district insurance commissioners.

In Oregon, there were eight health insurers participating in the individual market that requested premium rate hikes ranging from 6.9 percent to 21.8 percent. BlueCross BlueShield requested a premium rate hike of 12.7 percent in Vermont, and MVP Health Plan Inc. requested an increase of 6.7 percent. Finally, in Washington, D.C., CareFirst BlueCross Blue Shield and Kaiser Permanente, two insurers participating on the individual market, have requested rate hikes ranging from 13 to 39.6 percent.

Insurers in Oregon, Vermont, and Washington, D.C., have joined Virginia, Connecticut, and Maryland insurers in submitting rate increases, and all have proposed double-digit hikes. Maryland insurers requested rates as high as 150 percent, Connecticut insurers requested rates as high as 52 percent and Virginia insurers requested rates as high as 20 percent. These proposed hikes come after the Obama administration already announced last year that premium rates would rise in 2017.

The problem with American healthcare has never been quality. In terms of results, America’s healthcare system has always been the best in the world. The problem has been with access due to cost – and ObamaCare has only exacerbated the root cause of the problem.

H/T The Washington Free Beacon

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By Matt

Matt is the co-founder of Unbiased America and a freelance writer specializing in economics and politics. He’s been published... More about Matt

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