Time and again, Republicans keep predicting ObamaCare will be a Titanic-scale disaster. Time and again, the disaster turns out to be their predictions, while ObamaCare turns out to be the iceberg that sinks those predictions and sends them to the bottom of the cold, cold sea.
In the latest example, conservatives have been predicting that ObamaCare would drive huge price increases in the cost of individual coverage for 2015. It's now mid-November -- open enrollment begins Saturday -- so the
of policy premiums for major cities in every state in the country.
Overall, its survey finds that premiums have fallen in those cities by 0.2 percent. In the Atlanta market, the price of the second-cheapest silver plan will rise by 1.8 percent for a 40-year-old non-smoker.** The price of the cheapest bronze plan will rise 2.3 percent nationally, and 1.5 percent in the Atlanta market.
Kaiser's survey found considerable variation from city to city, a product of different market factors. In Anchorage, the silver benchmark plan has jumped in price by 28.4 percent to $488 a month, compared to $255 a month in Atlanta. (For someone making $30,000 a year, subsidies will bring the cost of that Anchorage plan down to a more manageable $164 a month.) In Jackson, Miss., premiums for that same benchmark plan fell by 23.7 percent. It's still early in the process and once the market stabilizes, those large price swings from year to year are expected to moderate.
But again, overall prices are holding steady, much steadier than before ObamaCare was implemented. As the folks at Vox point out:
"Obamacare is doing better at a lot of things than anyone seriously expected. The law's initial premiums came in cheaper than the Congressional Budget Office projected when the law first passed. In April 2014, the Congressional Budget Office said the unexpectedly low premiums meant Obamacare would cost $104 billion less than they previously thought. If Kaiser's estimates hold nationally, Obamacare's cost will have to be revised downward yet again."
Meanwhile, up in Washington, Republicans continue to bluster about "a full repeal and replacement of Obamacare in the next Congress", a move that would strip health coverage from millions of Americans. Furthermore, as National Journal reports, Republican leaders in the House and Senate still have no intention whatsoever of rallying behind a replacement plan of their own. Individual congressmen may propose plans, but they're going nowhere in either chamber.
And oh yeah -- the Supreme Court may throw the entire health-insurance industry into chaos with a ruling of its own sometime next year.
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** Under the law, ObamaCare uses the price of the second-lowest-cost silver plan as the benchmark for deciding how much, if any, subsidy is required for an individual. So Kaiser Family Foundation uses that same benchmark in its survey.
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