By Henry Payne
Last week I got news that my health
insurance costs are going up. A lot. In 2014 my monthly premium for a
family of four will increase 15 percent to $575, my deductible will
double to $3,000 and I will lose my drug coverage, adding another $100 a
month to my expenses. My story is typical for employees of Gannett, the
Detroit News’ parent company, and other businesses across the country.
Obamacare
is not just creating havoc in state exchanges, it is roiling the larger
private health insurance market. Costs are skyrocketing thanks to the
expensive mandates, regulations and taxes buried in the Affordable Car
Act.
Call it the Unaffordable Care Act.
Billed by President Barack Obama as a historic reform that would reduce health insurance costs by $2,500 a year
and cover 40 million uninsured, the program is dictating terms to every
health insurer while offering employees a grim choice of rising costs
with their company plan or seeking refuge in unworkable, expensive
government-run state exchanges.
While many small employers have
welcomed a delay in the ACA’s employer mandate until 2015, businesses
that already provide insurance are facing Obamacare’s new reality. The
bad news has come in waves as companies like Home Depot and Trader Joe’s announced they are dropping coverage for part-time employees. Hundreds of thousands of consumers are losing their
“mini-med plans” because they don’t meet Washington’s minimum
requirements. Now come the premium increases for self-insured businesses
that an analysis by Duke University’s Center for Health Policy estimates will cost
an average family $800 a year. In Michigan, for example, insurance
costs for the Extreme Chrysler dealership in Jackson are going up 70
percent and Michigan Group Benefits insurance says its clients’ average increase is 23 percent.
The $2,100 cost jump in my Gannett plan, administered by United Health,
is actually worse than it appears, as my premiums have already swelled
by 45 percent since 2011 as insurers anticipated federal regs forcing,
for example, coverage of dependents up to 26 years old. Gannett must
also swallow a $63 tax for each individual in its group plan and another
$2.13 fee per head to “study heath care outcomes.” Similar costs
threaten private, union-negotiated health plans, leading Teamsters President Jimmy Hoffa to say Obamacare will “destroy the very health and well being of our members.”
“Health
care costs historically have been going up 7 percent a year, so
anything above that is probably due to provisions in Obamacare,”
concludes Drew Gonshorowski, a policy analyst for the Heritage
Foundation’s Center for Analysis, who says the ACA’s over-regulation is
upsetting important insurance calculations like “age-brand compression”
that balances risk pools.
“Insurance
pricing is one of the most complicated, difficult-to-price markets,” he
says. “The ACA doesn’t allow insurers to price freely.”
Obamacare promises that its state exchanges offer insurance options, but the government-run system is dysfunctional.
Three weeks after its launch, the federally run Michigan Health Care
Exchange is still a nightmare. In the first two weeks I couldn’t sign up
because the three security questions wouldn’t load. Last week, the
security questions were finally there, but then I stalled at the next page.
After waiting in a chat room, an Obamacare assistant finally responded:
“Unfortunately, (high volume) is causing some glitches for some people
trying to create accounts, log in, and complete their application. Keep
trying and thanks for your patience.”
But if/when if I do get in, more sticker shock awaits.
An
analysis of the feds’ own data by Heritage’s Gonshorowski finds
Michigan consumers (as in most states) will experience cost increases
across the board. For a family of four, the state exchange will increase
costs from $771 to $864 per month. Even for a 27-year old, the youth
demographic on which exchanges depend to subsidize older applicants, the
exchange increase costs from $117 to $255 per month, a 118 percent
hike.
“The essence of the law is working,”
said the president at his Monday news conference. “The prices are lower
than we expected, the choice is greater than we expected.” Do you
believe him or your lying eyes?
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