WhatFinger


So much for California's pro-Obamacare spin

Forbes: In California, Obamacare raises individual insurance rates 64-146%



Last week, the left was ecstatic. The People's Republic of California announced that not only was Obamacare going to be great, it was going to be even greater than they expected. Everything, they claimed, was going to be cheaper than projected. Residents were going to save so much on their insurance that the over-taxed economy would be booming in no time.
As Peter Lee, executive director of the California exchange said, “These rates are way below the worst-case gloom-and-doom scenarios we have heard.” The state then claimed that “The rates submitted to Covered California for the 2014 individual market ranged from two percent above to 29 percent below the 2013 average premium for small employer plans in California’s most populous regions.” Unfortunately, all of these proclamations were predicated on a bunch of statist snake oil.

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According to Forbes, Lee cooked the numbers by comparing two different types of insurance.
"He was comparing apples—the plans that Californians buy today for themselves in a robust individual market—and oranges—the highly regulated plans that small employers purchase for their workers as a group. The difference is critical."
As usual, those who champion Obamacre are relying on deflection or outright deceit to sell the lie. If they can't make a legitimate comparison, they make a bogus one and hope no one will notice. Like the Affordable Care Act itself, this course of action isn't working very well. So, how bad is it going to get?
"If you’re a 25 year old male non-smoker, buying insurance for yourself, the cheapest plan on Obamacare’s exchanges is the catastrophic plan, which costs an average of $184 a month. (That’s the median monthly premium across California’s 19 insurance rating regions.) The next cheapest plan, the “bronze” comprehensive plan, costs $205 a month. But in 2013, on ehealthinsurance.com, the average cost of the five cheapest plans was only $92. In other words, for the average 25-year-old male non-smoking Californian, Obamacare will drive premiums up by between 100 and 123 percent. Under Obamacare, only people under the age of 30 can participate in the slightly cheaper catastrophic plan. So if you’re 40, your cheapest option is the bronze plan. In California, the median price of a bronze plan for a 40-year-old male non-smoker will be $261. But on eHealthInsurance, the average cost of the five cheapest plans was $121. That is, Obamacare will increase individual-market premiums by an average of 116 percent."
Yikes. For both the 25 and 40 year old brackets, individuals purchasing insurance will see their premiums double - and that's the best-case scenario. Plus, it's based on the cheapest possible plans. If you want something better, it's going to be even worse. Now, admittedly, if you're on the very bottom end of the income ladder, you'll be protected from a lot of this by federal subsidies. However, if you're like most people - if your income is somewhere in the middle - you'll be enduring the higher taxes required to subsidize the poor, and you'll be paying much higher individual premiums. The bottom line is, you're going to be stung - badly - unless you're either unemployed or among the nation's lowest wage earners. So much for California's pro-Obamacare spin.


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