Free Republic

The Affordable Care Act cannot be broken down into sound bites. This holds true for both its most ardent supporters and its most fervent opponents. The law is simply too complex to be labeled either a total failure or a smashing success. But that doesn't mean it isn't trending in one of those two directions. Across the country, individuals and families are beginning to learn whether their insurance premiums will change for 2015—early estimates indicate an overall national increase of 7.5 percent, according to a PricewaterhouseCoopers analysis. That's what is expected despite the early promise that the ACA would lower...

Supporters of President Obama’s health care law have been touting proposed insurance rates for 2015 — arguing that they aren’t as high as some of the dire warnings of the law’s critics.But it’s worth considering some additional context.Data complied by the Health Research Institute of PricewaterhouseCoopers from about 29 states plus the District of Columbia show that the average premium increase for insurance starting next year is currently 8.2 percent. But within that average, there’s a wide range.In Arizona, for instance, the average premium increase submitted was 11.2 percent, but rates ranged from a decrease of 23 percent to a...

Many businesses said Obamacare is jacking up their employee health coverage costs, and they expect it to do so even more next year, two new surveys of businesses by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York have found. Not all firms surveyed said the Affordable Care Act (ACA) is to blame for those cost increases to date. But a majority did. About 20 percent of respondents to both surveys said they were reducing their number of workers and/or raising the share of part-time workers as a result of the ACA. "A similar proportion said they were paying less compensation per...

And they should know because they're the ones not collecting the premiums.Much of the left has been trying its best to push the notion that "ObamaCare is working," largely based on the announced enrollment total of anywhere from 8 million to 10 million that has come out of the White House. Since this was more than the 7 million they originally said they needed to make the system viable, viola . . . success!One problem: They counted everyone who enrolled, without regard to whether enrollees ever paid a premium. If you don't pay the premium, you're not insured and you're...

The number of Obamacare enrollments for top health insurer Aetna is plummeting, according to a report from Investor’s Business Daily. Aetna’s enrollment reached 720,000 by May 20, after the final end to the the extended open enrollment period. But by the end of June Aetna had less than 600,000 paying customers, IBD reports, and the company expects paying customers to fall to “just over 500,000″ by the end of 2015. That would be a drop of just under 30 percent from the May sign-up numbers — the last time the Obama administration released its official Obamacare enrollment tally. Aetna’s reported...

President Obama's celebration of 8 million Obamacare enrollees was premature, according to this article in Investors Business Daily. Major insurers are reporting large drop offs in Obamacare paying customers, that could mean the number of Americans insured by Obamacare dropping below 6 million by year's end. ObamaCare exchange statistics should clear up any doubt as to why the Obama Administration has been tight-lipped about enrollment since celebrating 8 million sign-ups in mid-April. Reality, evidence suggests, could require quite a come-down from those lofty claims. The nation's third-largest health insurer had 720,000 people sign up for exchange coverage as of May...

In the hospitals, we see the consequences. While the poor and the illegal immigrants get absolutely free care, the middle-class patients are collapsing financially under the strain of their deductibles and their lost income from their time off work, not to mention the additional stress of their illness. In our clinics, sick patients are choosing to forego testing, medicines, and surgery that they need solely because of cost. Instead they are living with their illnesses, often with cheap antibiotics as a means of delaying the inevitable. To make matters worse, the patients getting their health care for free will ask...

Sticker shock is around the corner for many Americans with government-brokered medical coverage, as insurance companies are beginning to apply their first-year costs to next year's premiums. In the case of Florida, some consumers will pay as much as 23 per cent more when their plans are renewed in the fall, according to the Florida Office of Insurance Regulation. Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2716851/Obamacare-rates-2015-23-cent.html#ixzz39aDNsRvB Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook

Florida’s largest Obamacare exchange health insurer is boosting its premiums by 17.6 percent, a staggering increase for hundreds of thousands of Floridians. Florida Blue, the Blue Cross Blue Shield insurer in Florida, has the largest market share of any insurer operating on the state’s Obamacare exchange. The company cited higher health costs than expected due to an older customer base which is using more health services than they’d prepared for, according to Kaiser Health News. Patrick Geraghty, Florida Blue’s CEO, had previously warned that the company was under “tremendous financial pressure” and that they’d be seeking significant hikes.

The bad news in California: If you liked your plan and/or your doctor, many of you couldn’t keep either if you had an individual-market plan. The worse news in California: If you liked your premiums, you definitely couldn’t keep those. In the first year of ObamaCare, premiums rose in the Golden State anywhere from 22% to 88% from the previous year — even as insurer networks narrowed so much that consumers had a tough time finding a provider at all: The cost of health insurance for individuals skyrocketed this year in California, with some paying almost twice what they...

A federal appeals court on Tuesday dealt a setback to the Affordable Care Act, ruling that premium subsidies provided through the federal health exchange in 36 states are invalid under the writing of the law.Here's the practical effect of the ruling, if it withstands the rest of the legal process: More than 5 million, generally low-income Americans who received tax credits through the federal exchange to purchase health insurance would see their premiums explode.Avalere Health, an independent healthcare firm, released an analysis last week showing that individuals who received premium subsidies for health insurance would see a premium hike of about...

Nevada, buckle up. Over the next few months, you’ll learn how much your health insurance premiums will go up for next year. The early evidence isn’t good — the percentage increase could be in double digits. But that’s nothing compared with what you’ll face in 2017. In May, I released a comprehensive study showing how the Affordable Care Act will likely play out over the next few years. The diagnosis isn’t good. First, the short version. In two years, the ACA’s structural problems will lead to substantial premium increases. Once that happens, Nevadans will likely leave the insurance market in...

Insurance companies operating in New York State's marketplace are expected to ask for double-digit premium hikes next year, according to new filings from the companies. Capital New York reports the average requested increase was 13%. The New York Post reports that number at about 12%. But the bigger insurers are seeking a bigger premium hike — according to Capital, the six most popular plans in New York are requesting an average increase of almost 15%. The Post reports that Excellus Health Plan, which has about 24,000 customers, is requesting a 19.7% hike. MVP Health Plan, which has nearly 33,000 customers,...

Insurance companies that feed into New York’s health exchange system for Obamacare are requesting hikes to patient premiums that are in the double-digits, a New York Post investigation found. The average increase that insurers are considering for 2015 is 12 percent, the newspaper reported. But a large number of these insurers actually want to boost premium payment costs on patients by 20 percent. The rate hikes are curious, the New York Post noted, given the stated goal of Obamacare to rein in runaway medical costs. Insurers, however, blamed the premium increases directly on Obamacare.

Most Obamacare customers will face serious premium hikes next year unless they change their health insurance again, according to a Thursday study from Avalere Health. Most Obamacare customers are receiving some level of taxpayer subsidies to take the edge off high premium rates, but the plans that determine the amount of subsidies available will be changing significantly, according to Avalere.

There are hundreds of aspects of Obamacare that people argue over. But there’s one question that matters above all others: does the Affordable Care Act live up to its name? Does it make health insurance less expensive? Last November, our team at the Manhattan Institute published a study indicating that Obamacare had increased the underlying cost of individually-purchased health insurance in the average state by 41 percent in 2014, relative to 2013. We’ve now redone the study on a county-by-county basis, complete with a brand-new interactive map. Depending on where you live, the results may surprise you.

Dan from Squirrel Hill's Blog Why did Democrats give Obamacare an annual marriage tax of up to $11,028 per couple? In front of the U.S. Supreme Court, the Obama administration argued that Obamacare is a tax.According to the Obamacare calulator, Obamacare places an annual tax on married couples for being married instead of single. The amount of this tax depends upon the ages, incomes, and parental status of the married couple.According to the Obamacare calculator, the extreme case of this tax occurs with a 60-year-old married couple with no children, where the two spouses have identical incomes totaling $62,041 per year....

In Vermont, the rate increases announced Monday range from 9.8 percent to 18.3 percent. Kentuckians will pay up to 17 percent more in 2015, and in Virginia rates will rise as much as 22 percent. These increases are the direct result of the Obamacare scheme to make health care “more affordable,” and the increases could have a considerable impact on the November congressional elections. The state-by-state drip, drip, drip of bad news for Democratic candidates can be good news for the rest of us if it encourages voters to shake up Washington. The shake-up starts with getting the government out...

States are nailing down dates to release 2015 premium costs under ObamaCare, and their decisions will guarantee a drumbeat of news about rate hikes all the way to the November midterm elections. Democrats are bracing for grim headlines that could put the unpopular law back at the forefront of voters’ minds. Premiums are expected to go up in a majority of states, as they do every year, but the size of the increases could go a long way toward determining how much political damage Obama-Care inflicts on vulnerable Democratic lawmakers. A survey by The Hill of state insurance commissioners found...

A large number of people who've signed up for private health insurers through the Cover Oregon health insurance exchange have not paid their first month's premiums, meaning they are at risk of going without coverage through November. "I've already had clients not pay and lose their coverage," says Lisa Lettenmaier, who owns the health insurance brokerage Health Source NW in Tigard. "It's imperative for people to pay their premiums on time." More than 81,000 people went through through Cover Oregon – either through paper or electronic applications—to select a private health plan. Of those, 5,000 have already cancelled policies or...