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Thanks to Obamacare…

It’s Obamacare’s third anniversary. Though many key parts of Obamacare—including some of its tax hikes and mandates—don’t go into effect until next year, Americans are feeling many of its changes already.

Please share these impacts to mark three years of this bureaucratic nightmare.

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Learn more: Obamacare’s 18 New Tax Hikes

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Tags: anniversary, costs, health coverage, jobs, ObamaCare, premiums, regulations, repeal the law, three years

Obamacare: Projected Premium Increases by State

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Remember that repetitive presidential promise to “cut the cost of a typical family’s premium by up to $2,500 a year”? As 2014 and full implementation of Obamacare get closer, it is crystal clear that won’t be the case.

Obamacare’s most onerous insurance regulations will directly cause insurance premiums to skyrocket, particularly in the individual and small group markets.

While there are many provisions that will increase premiums, two will have the most expensive impact:

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Tags: broken promises, higher costs, insurance, insurance regulations, ObamaCare, premiums

The Public Option: Alive and Well in Obamacare

Thought the “public option” was dead? Think again. Chief among the most dangerous provisions in Obamacare is the creation of government-sponsored national health plans, which are, in effect, another embodiment of the public option.

Through its multi-year implementation, the law steadily evolves into a national single-payer health care system.

Here’s the background: In 2014, the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), the small agency that runs the federal civil service, will administer at least two nationwide health plans to compete against private insurance. OPM will be responsible for negotiating the new health plans’ medical-loss ratio, profit margins, and premiums.

The OPM-sponsored plans will automatically qualify to compete against private health plans in the new state exchanges and thus will not be subject to the same qualifications and standards outlined in Obamacare for private plans in the exchanges. OPM must contract with an already existing large insurer, because such a plan must be offered in 60 percent of states in year one.

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Tags: medical loss ratio, Office of Personnel Management, premiums, private coverage, profit margins, public option, sponsoring health plans, state health exchange

The President’s Planned Changes to Medicare: Costly for Seniors

What is President Obama’s plan for Medicare—Obamacare’s changes and beyond?

Heritage has a new Issue Brief, “Obama’s Medicare Plan: Seniors Will Pay More,” that details the future increases in out-of-pocket costs for seniors under current law and President Obama’s 2013 budget proposal.

Over the next five years, under current law, seniors in traditional Medicare are projected to face higher Part B and D premiums, along with other out-of-pocket cost increases. Instead of structurally reforming Medicare, President Obama’s 2013 budget proposal would raise premiums even further for upper-income enrollees in Parts B and D, while also imposing additional deductibles and co-payments (in certain cases) on newly joining baby boomers beginning in 2017.

“Obama’s latest budgetary scheme for cost-shifting to seniors is just another indication that the Administration and its allies on Capitol Hill are running out of options,” the authors write.

Read the full report here.

Tags: Medicare, out-of-pocket costs, pay more, plan, premiums, President Obama, Seniors, traditional program

Urban Institute Claims Wages and Other Benefits to Be Reduced Under Obamacare

Recent analysis by the Urban Institute says that Obamacare has “a negligible impact on total employer-sponsored coverage and its costs.” But a closer look at the results of the study uncovers some other important points:

• Two-thirds of employees observe decreases in wages while their employers deal with increasing costs. The Urban Institute claims that mid-size firms will see spending per person increase by 4.6 percent, while large firms will see spending increases by 0.3 percent per person. According to the U.S. Census, this accounts for 65.1 percent of employees—or roughly 79 million—in the U.S. who are employed by medium- or large-size firms. The study suggests: “Any increase in employers’ health-related costs will be offset by decreases in other compensation—whether wages or other benefits.” This means that individuals in mid- and large-size firms will receive less in take-home wages (or other benefits) and pay a greater proportion of their compensation to health care due to Obamacare.
• The study does not take into account a “wage floor.” The study assumes that adjustments to compensation can occur in benefits and wages for all workers, but there are instances where, if wages and benefits are already low, they could not be lowered any further to pay for increases in health care costs. We already observe service industries trying new methods through moving workers from full- to part-time employment in order to avoid increased Obamacare costs.

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Tags: costs, employer impact, ObamaCare, premiums, study, Urban Institute, wage floor

Dependent Premiums Slated for Future Increases

As Michelle Andrews reported for Kaiser Health News, “Thanks in part to the 2010 health law’s provisions that allow adult children to stay on their parents’ plans until they reach age 26, employers are scrutinizing their dependent coverage policies more closely.”

Heritage’s Drew Gonshorowski has cautioned against the adverse side effects before, writing, “In the case of insuring more young people, recent analysis shows that Obamacare encourages young adults to enroll in dependent coverage and drop their own coverage, causes employers to stop offering coverage, and will likely increase premiums.”

In accordance with Gonshorowski’s warning, insurance companies are raising dependent premiums. According to Aon Hewitt’s 2012 employer health care survey, employers already subsidize dependent coverage less, a trend that is expected to continue. The survey found that plans will subsidize employee coverage at 75 percent and dependent coverage at 69 percent. A Towers Watson survey also found that 38 percent of companies are planning or considering significantly reducing subsidization of coverage for spouses and dependents, leading to even higher premiums.

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Tags: Aon Hewitt, dependent, ObamaCare, parents' plans, premiums, Towers Watson survey, young adults

Obamacare by the Numbers

Looking for some straight facts on Obamacare and its impact? Here are some of the most important numbers you need to know about President Obama’s health law:

• 20 million. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) projects that as many as 20 million Americans could no longer have their current employer-based health coverage by 2019; others predict it could be as high as 35 million.
• 85 million. The Office of the Actuary at CMS estimates that, by 2020, Medicaid enrollment will increase from 54 million in 2010 to 85 million, pushing America closer to government-run health care.
• 400 percent of the federal poverty level. Individuals earning over $44,680 a year and families earning over $92,200 a year are not eligible for any federal subsidies to help purchase coverage under Obamacare.

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Tags: coverage dump, federal subsidies, Medicaid, numbers, ObamaCare, premiums, uninsured

Side Effects: Federal Government Taxes Itself and the States

One especially peculiar side effect of Obamacare will cause the federal government to begin taxing itself and state governments. This begins in 2014 as the result of the new annual fee imposed on the health insurance industry.

The health insurer fee was created to fund new spending under Obamacare. The new tax hits not only private insurance but state Medicaid managed care programs that are contracted to insurers as well.

Many states contract with private insurers to provide care to their Medicaid beneficiaries. States pay these managed care organizations a fixed premium per member per month. The new tax will increase these premiums, because they will now have to include an allowance to offset the Obamacare fee and to cover the federal income tax impact on the additional revenue added to the premiums to cover the fee.   (Read the rest on The Foundry…)

Tags: federal income tax, managed care, Medicaid, ObamaCare, premiums, taxes

Obamacare’s Soaring Price Tag

On January 21, 2009, Barack Obama stood on the steps of the U.S. Capitol and, in his inaugural address, pledged to America that he would “wield technology’s wonders to raise health care’s quality and lower its cost.” What he did wield, of course, was a 2,000-page bill known as Obamacare. More than a year on, we now know that health care costs are soaring, and the President’s signature legislation is to blame.

Most Americans know that medicine is getting more expensive, but a new survey puts a shocking sticker price on the rapid increase. The Kaiser Family Foundation and the Health Research and Educational Trust report that between 2010 and 2011, family premiums increased by 9 percent and for individual premiums by 8 percent. According to the survey, “The average premium for single coverage in 2011 is $452 per month or $5,429 per year … The average premium for family coverage is $1,256 per month or $15,073 per year.”

What’s driving those costs? In large part, Obamacare. According to Kaiser Family Foundation CEO Drew Altman, the President’s health care legislation was responsible for approximately 20 percent of the increase in premiums. Heritage’s Kathryn Nix explains what parts of Obamacare are to blame:

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Tags: family coverage, health care costs, individual coverage, ObamaCare, premiums, sticker shock

Health Insurance Continues Unaffordable Trend After Obamacare

This week, the Kaiser Family Foundation and the Health Research and Educational Trust released a major survey on employer-sponsored health benefits in the United States. Among the many important findings in the report, one fact stood out: Americans are paying more and more for their health insurance every year, a concerning trend that is only getting worse under Obamacare. The report explains that:

• The cost of insurance is increasingly unaffordable to American families. The cost of health insurance in the United States has grown significantly over the last decade. The Kaiser survey shows that the average annual premium for a family in 2011 is 31 percent higher than it was in 2006, and 113 percent higher than in 2001. This year marks the first year that the cost of family coverage will exceed $15,000, reports The Wall Street Journal’s Anna Wilde Matthews.

Small businesses especially struggle to offer health benefits to their employees because of cost. According to Kaiser, 55 percent of small firms surveyed that did not offer coverage cited the high cost of insurance as the primary reason.  (Read the rest on The Foundry…)

Tags: employer-sponsored insurance, health care costs, Kaiser Family Foundation, premiums, unaffordable