Obamacare Premiums Are Going up a Whopping 34 Percent (or More!) Through 2018
While the GOP has repeatedly tried and failed to repeal and/or replace Obamacare (AKA the Affordable Care Act), President Trump insisted he would allow the ACA to “implode” and clear the way for a new, GOP-created plan. But until then, the president doesn’t intend to simply allow Obamacare to go on, untouched.
Instead, the administration has severely limited the time frame in which new ACA enrollments can happen (SET YOUR CALENDARS FOR NOVEMBER 1 TO SIGN UP, FOLKS!), while slashing their advertising to let new applicants know they can even enroll. Besides that, earlier this year, the president destroyed insurance subsidies, ensuring premiums would go up — and they will — in some cases, by a whopping 34 percent.
Navigating the website Healthcare.gov, consulting firm Avalere Health crunched numbers on the 39 states currently using the website to apply for and manage their ACA accounts. What they found was that across the board, premiums for the most popular Obamacare plan (the silver plan) will go up by 34 percent, while many other plans will also be heading into double-digit territory, including bronze (18 percent), gold (16 percent), and platinum (24 percent) programs.
While these figures represent the average percentage increases across all participating states, three states will see even higher premium increases. Florida’s premiums are going up by a shocking 49 percent, 43 percent in Missouri, and an exorbitant 65 percent in Wyoming. Only Alaska, Arizona, and North Dakota will see any decline.
Avalere said that a volatile market, combined with the president’s removal of insurance subsidies and constant tweaking to the ACA, are all to blame for these drastic increases. Chris Sloan, a senior manager with Avalere, told ABC News, “You put all that together, and there are a lot of additional forces on top of market forces driving high premium increases for 2018.”
One thing that isn’t changing, however, is that subsidized customers will not be feeling the sting of these premium increases — at least not for the time being.
With a shorter enrollment time (down to six weeks from last year’s 12), and no set goal for new sign ups to the health care scheme, the administration says they are actually focused on a “good user experience” over getting as many folks as possible signed up.
Will your ACA premiums be going up next year? Tell us @BritandCo!
(Photos via Getty + Roberto Machado Noa/LightRocket via Getty)