The Politics of ObamaCare

Byron York tries to figure out the winners (you may already receive a subsidy!) and the losers:

“When carriers converted their old policies to Obamacare-compliant, it was typical for the insurance company to increase costs about 35 percent to comply,” Laszewski says. “That increase could come in the form of higher premiums, more co-pays and deductibles, and narrower networks. A carrier might have only increased rates 15 percent but then created a narrow network worth another 25 percent, for example. Even when they did the above, some individuals might have seen a 15 percent decrease and others a 50 percent increase — many demographic issues skewed the rate result. So, getting any simple ‘it went up 34.7 percent’ just isn’t possible.”

The bottom line, according to Laszewski: “We have literally millions of people each impacted a bit differently.” That’s hard to quantify and turn into a neat political argument.

We have lots of known unknowns here. But it’s the unknown unknowns that usually sneak up behind you and bite you on the rear. We might not get a real feel for those teeth, and whose behind they land in, until election day.