Healthcare affordability is a top concern for voters in this fall’s midterm elections, according to a new Kaiser Family Foundation poll. Republicans, Democrats, and independents alike say they would be more inclined to support candidates who want to reduce insurance costs.
Midterm candidates can answer voters’ calls for cheaper coverage by eliminating Obamacare’s premium-exploding mandates and regulations.
Obamacare has made health plans unaffordable by banning many of the practices that insurers once used to keep rates down. For instance, Obamacare mandated that all plans cover a long list of ten “essential health benefits,” including everything from pediatric vision care to substance abuse services.
Enrollees pay higher premiums for these benefits – regardless of whether they want them or intend to use them. Basic, low-cost plans were a thing of the past under Obamacare.
The law also prevents insurers from charging older, sicker enrollees more than three times what they charge younger, healthier ones. But it costs nearly five times more to insure a 64-year-old than a 21-year-old. So insurers have to artificially inflate premiums for younger enrollees to offset losses on older ones.
Since Obamacare took effect, premiums have soared. Consider that average 2017 rates on the HealthCare.gov exchanges were more than double the average individual market rates in 2013, the year before the marketplaces opened for business.
And those premium increases haven’t let up. In 2019, Virginia’s insurers intend to raise exchange plan premiums by as much as 64 percent. Rates for some plans sold on Maryland’s Obamacare exchange, meanwhile, could jump by more than 91 percent next year.
Voters are understandably fed up with such massive rate hikes, which is why they want midterm congressional candidates to make coverage affordable again. The only way to do so is to roll back the insurance market mandates that sent premiums soaring in the first place – by repealing and replacing Obamacare.
Nothing contained in this blog is to be construed as necessarily reflecting the views of the Pacific Research Institute or as an attempt to thwart or aid the passage of any legislation.
Voters Want Cheap Healthcare, So Axe Obamacare’s Mandates
Sally C. Pipes
Healthcare affordability is a top concern for voters in this fall’s midterm elections, according to a new Kaiser Family Foundation poll. Republicans, Democrats, and independents alike say they would be more inclined to support candidates who want to reduce insurance costs.
Midterm candidates can answer voters’ calls for cheaper coverage by eliminating Obamacare’s premium-exploding mandates and regulations.
Obamacare has made health plans unaffordable by banning many of the practices that insurers once used to keep rates down. For instance, Obamacare mandated that all plans cover a long list of ten “essential health benefits,” including everything from pediatric vision care to substance abuse services.
The law also prevents insurers from charging older, sicker enrollees more than three times what they charge younger, healthier ones. But it costs nearly five times more to insure a 64-year-old than a 21-year-old. So insurers have to artificially inflate premiums for younger enrollees to offset losses on older ones.
Since Obamacare took effect, premiums have soared. Consider that average 2017 rates on the HealthCare.gov exchanges were more than double the average individual market rates in 2013, the year before the marketplaces opened for business.
Voters are understandably fed up with such massive rate hikes, which is why they want midterm congressional candidates to make coverage affordable again. The only way to do so is to roll back the insurance market mandates that sent premiums soaring in the first place – by repealing and replacing Obamacare.
Read more . . .
Nothing contained in this blog is to be construed as necessarily reflecting the views of the Pacific Research Institute or as an attempt to thwart or aid the passage of any legislation.