One Reason Health Insurance Premiums Vary So Much

New York Times ^ | 5/15/2014 | Eduardo Porter

[steve86]

If you live in Jackson, Miss., Obamacare is giving you a raw deal.

A 27-year-old in Jackson pays $336 a month for the second-cheapest silver health plan on Mississippi’s s federally run insurance marketplace. That is more than twice as much as the $154 a 27-year-old in Nashville would pay for the same type of policy, and the $138 for a similar person in Tucson.

Across all 34 insurance marketplaces run by the federal government, the average is $287, about 25 percent cheaper. The reason for the higher prices in some markets? Paltry competition, say Leemore Dafny and Christopher Ody from Northwestern University, and Jonathan Gruber of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Jackson has only two insurers on the marketplace: Humana and Centene. By contrast, four insurance companies slug it out on Nashville’s exchange. In Tucson, there are eight.

The research by Ms. Dafny, Mr. Gruber and Mr. Ody, to be published by the National Bureau of Economic Research next week, concludes that premiums on the exchanges are 11 percent higher than they would be if all the health insurance companies that sell policies in each state had participated in the new markets for health plans.

[steve86]

In my state four additional companies are proposing to join the exchange for 2015.

[ExTexasRedhead]

Obama’s final solution for We The People, ya think?

http://conservativetribune.com/docs-rebel-against-obamacare/

[sheik yerbouty]

Not if the American People can help it!