Yesterday, the Council for Affordable Health Insurance (CAHI) released its annual report on health insurance mandates in the states. They report that mandated benefits—i.e., medical procedures that states require insurance providers to cover—across the 50 states are on the rise, jumping from 2,133 in 2009 to 2,156 in 2010. But that’s just part of the story. The report also shows that mandated benefits increase the cost of health insurance and by how much. This should come as no surprise. Requiring insurers to offer a higher value product comes at a …
By now, most Americans who have been following the effects of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) realize that the health care overhaul is going to cause health insurance premiums to increase. Even President Obama admitted that his health care plan was “going to increase our costs—we knew that.” However, the number of provisions in Obamacare that will increase premiums is likely far larger than most people realize. In recent research, Heritage analysts Brian Blase and Rea Hederman, Jr., highlight a dozen ways in which Obamacare will raise …
Health Insurers Plan Hikes. That was the headline of a Wall Street Journal story last Tuesday which reported: “Health insurers say they plan to raise premiums for some Americans as a direct result of the health overhaul in coming weeks, complicating Democrats’ efforts to trumpet their signature achievement before the midterm elections. Aetna Inc., some BlueCross BlueShield plans and other smaller carriers have asked for premium increases of between 1% and 9% to pay for extra benefits required under the law, according to filings with state regulators.” And The Wall …
Health Insurers Plan Hikes. That’s the headline of today’s Wall Street Journal story which reports: “Health insurers say they plan to raise premiums for some Americans as a direct result of the health overhaul in coming weeks, complicating Democrats’ efforts to trumpet their signature achievement before the midterm elections. Aetna Inc., some BlueCross BlueShield plans and other smaller carriers have asked for premium increases of between 1% and 9% to pay for extra benefits required under the law, according to filings with state regulators.” It’s exactly what conservatives predicted. While …
Despite all the talk about how Obamacare would lower health care costs, it’s already becoming clear that it just won’t be the case. The Indianapolis Star reports that companies can expect employee health insurance costs to rise even faster. “Driven by worries about the economy and possibly the effects of health-care reform, [health insurers] are raising rates this year for family coverage through employer-sponsored plans… from 8 percent to 21 percent, which is considerably higher than the 5 percent increase the Kaiser Family Foundation reported in 2009.”
New analysis confirms that the health care bills moving the House and Senate will break the many promises President Obama made to the American people. As the details of the legislation are exposed, it is no wonder that Americans are growing uneasy over the direction the legislation has taken. The Chief Actuary for the President’s own Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services issued an extensive analysis of the pending Reid bill and House-passed bill. The Lewin Group also released an analysis of the House and Senate bills. These reports provide …
An Issue Brief released yesterday by the Robert Woods Johnson Foundation (RWJF) concludes that small firms would largely benefit from the reform efforts that have been put forth in both the Senate bill (HR 3590) and the House bill (HR 3200). While the benefits from these bills to small businesses already are uncertain – and likely even deleterious – the latest version of the senate bill is even less likely to result in actual benefits for small employers. Previous Heritage analysis has shown that small businesses would be affected by …
Yesterday, Heritage scholar Rea Hederman explained why new CBO estimates showing only small rises in health insurance premiums under Obamacare was not good news for Americans (in short: Americans with generous coverage would see benefits cut due to the tax on high-value plans and Americans with Spartan coverage would see their premiums increase due to increased coverage mandates and taxes on medical devices and insurers that would be passed on). Today at NRO, Ethics and Public Policy Center fellow James Capretta explains why even the low premium increases projected by …
Today, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released a new report detailing why individuals who purchase insurance in the non-group market would see much higher premiums in 2016 under Obamacare than they would under current law. On average, those in large-group employer-sponsored plans would see their premiums remain flat. But this is an average of two subgroups that hides major losses by millions of Americans: 1) employees with generous coverage would see benefits cut due to the tax on high-value plans, and 2) employees with pared-down plans would see their premiums …
