Insurance Market Requiring Gov't Handouts Is Dysfunctional - Pacific Research Institute

Insurance Market Requiring Gov’t Handouts Is Dysfunctional

Health Depositphotos 5734409 l 2015

Next week marks the beginning of open enrollment on the health insurance exchanges created by the Affordable Care Act. According to one recent analysis of 72 exchange insurers, premiums are likely to increase by an average of 10%. In some cases, rate hikes could exceed 25%.

Most consumers won’t feel these price increases, thanks to the generous premium subsidies provided by the recently passed Inflation Reduction Act. But spending billions of dollars to obscure premium hikes indicates that the Affordable Care Act is failing to deliver on its eponymous promise.

Between 2013 — the year before the exchanges opened for business — and 2019, average monthly premiums on the individual insurance market more than doubled, from $244 to $588. So the latest round of rate hikes is not out of the ordinary.

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.

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