First Look at Health Insurance Rates For Next Year Is Encouraging
Early evidence suggests that competition in the new Affordable Care Act marketplaces is working. Health insurance premiums in major cities around the country are barely rising.
That’s the conclusion of two studies of data about newly public insurance rates. One, from the Kaiser Family Foundation, a health research group, looked at 49 cities and found that prices for a popular type of plan are actually going down, on average. A second, from the actuarial firm Wakely Consulting Group, looked at the largest county in each of the 34 states with marketplaces run by the federal government and found an average rate increase of zero.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/15/u...emc=rss&_r=0&abt=0002&abg=1#story-continues-2
Decreases in the price of health insurance are basically unheard-of. The individual insurance market that these new marketplaces replaced experienced annual increases of 10 percent in recent years. In the employer market, premiums went up by a record-low rate of 3 percent this year, but even that increase can’t compare with what’s happening in many exchange markets.
“Usually, health insurance premiums have gone in one direction, and that is up,” said Cynthia Cox, a senior analyst at Kaiser who was a co-author on its paper. She said that the widespread premium decreases really stood out when she ran the numbers.
The studies suggest that, in large cities, at least, the new health insurance marketplaces are working as intended: Health insurers, competing for business, are keeping prices low. That’s great news for the federal budget, since the government is paying subsidies to help some 85 percent of people on the market pay their bills. It’s also good for consumers who will be coming to the market for the first time during open enrollment, which begins Saturday.
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And there's Colorado's data points:
Colorado Consumers Won't See Big Rate Increases
And they have a picture:
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Impeach! Impeach!
Early evidence suggests that competition in the new Affordable Care Act marketplaces is working. Health insurance premiums in major cities around the country are barely rising.
That’s the conclusion of two studies of data about newly public insurance rates. One, from the Kaiser Family Foundation, a health research group, looked at 49 cities and found that prices for a popular type of plan are actually going down, on average. A second, from the actuarial firm Wakely Consulting Group, looked at the largest county in each of the 34 states with marketplaces run by the federal government and found an average rate increase of zero.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/15/u...emc=rss&_r=0&abt=0002&abg=1#story-continues-2
Decreases in the price of health insurance are basically unheard-of. The individual insurance market that these new marketplaces replaced experienced annual increases of 10 percent in recent years. In the employer market, premiums went up by a record-low rate of 3 percent this year, but even that increase can’t compare with what’s happening in many exchange markets.
“Usually, health insurance premiums have gone in one direction, and that is up,” said Cynthia Cox, a senior analyst at Kaiser who was a co-author on its paper. She said that the widespread premium decreases really stood out when she ran the numbers.
The studies suggest that, in large cities, at least, the new health insurance marketplaces are working as intended: Health insurers, competing for business, are keeping prices low. That’s great news for the federal budget, since the government is paying subsidies to help some 85 percent of people on the market pay their bills. It’s also good for consumers who will be coming to the market for the first time during open enrollment, which begins Saturday.
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------------
And there's Colorado's data points:
Colorado Consumers Won't See Big Rate Increases
And they have a picture:
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-------------
Impeach! Impeach!
