Let’s face it: That story about UnitedHealth dropping out of various ♡bamaCare!!! exchanges was totally overblown. I mean, it’s not like all the insurers are bailing.
Some are just jacking those Affordable Care prices way, way up instead:
The increases, along with the continued lagging results for insurers, are a sign that the exchange business hasn’t stabilized for insurers in the first few years of the health law’s full implementation, prompting health plans to continue to push for more changes to the law.
The health law instigated a sweeping overhaul to the way insurance is priced and sold in the U.S. Insurers can’t deny coverage to consumers with risky medical histories, or charge them more for plans. A number of popular insurers say the enrollees who bought plans through the exchanges have had higher health costs than they originally predicted—when they knew less about the impact of the law.
“It’s a pretty good bet if a plan lost money in 2016, it will adjust pricing in 2017,” said Sam Glick, a partner with consulting firm Oliver Wyman, a unit of Marsh & McLennan Cos.
In Oregon and Virginia, the first two states to make insurers’ premium proposals for 2017 public, several big insurers are showing how those projections bear out.
Providence Health Plan, currently the largest insurer for people buying coverage through the Oregon health exchange, is seeking an average increase of 29.6%.
An annual increase of nearly 30% doesn’t seem that affordable to me.
Maybe it has something to do with “adverse selection” and “perverse incentives” and other minor little details that ♡bamaCare!!! opponents have been talking about, to no avail, since 2009.
But what do we know? We only predicted all this crap.
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