Apr 25, 2016 |
By Jack Craver
Supporters of
the Patient Protection and Affordable
Care Act (PPACA) are bracing for another obstacle for the
landmark health law.
Insurers
offering health plans through the federal and state marketplaces are set to
jack up their premiums. Although premiums have risen modestly
for plans in the first two years of the PPACA’s implementation, state
regulators have in some instances forced insurers to back off of particularly
big price hikes.
But now that
insurers are suggesting they may abandon the marketplace entirely if they can’t
find a way to turn a profit off the business, the federal government may be
forced to accept higher premiums.
It’s not clear,
however, whether higher premiums on PPACA plans will necessarily mean price
hikes for consumers, 85 percent of whom receive a subsidy to offset the cost of
their premiums.
Government
analysts have found strange health insurance-related numbers in some taxpayers'
tax returns.
"There are
absolutely some carriers that are going to have to come in with some pretty
significant price hikes to make up for the underpricing that they did before,”
Sabrina Corlette, a professor at Georgetown University’s Center on Health
Insurance Reforms, told The Hill.
The challenge
for the Obama administration is both economic and political. If insurers jack
up rates, many who already feel their insurance is too pricey might abandon the marketplace,
jeopardizing the system. In addition, price hikes will feed into Republican
criticisms of Obamacare, making it tough for the future Democratic presidential
nominee, as well as for Democratic Congressional candidates, to defend the
policy.
Sen. John Barasso,
R-WY, chair of the Republican Senate Policy Committee, told The Hill that the
law’s problems will be a major issue in the upcoming campaign, as they have
been in the past three election cycles. He highlighted a recent poll by NPR
that showed a quarter of Americans said they had been hurt by the law, compared
to 15 percent who said they had benefited.
And yet, while
all of the GOP candidates for president continue to bash Obamacare, the law has
not received nearly the attention anticipated, largely due to the unusual
nature of Donald Trump’s campaign, which has been defined almost entirely by
immigration, trade and, of course, the personality-based insults the
billionaire developer lobs at his opponents.
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