GOP turns to familiar target as Obamacare rates increase

At political events across the state, Trump’s backers have highlighted the rising rates as evidence that the Affordable Care Act is in a “death spiral” and that only the GOP nominee can fix it. Donald Trump Jr. said Friday during a swing through metro Atlanta that the health care law is paralyzing small businesses.

“It is bankrupting families,” Ralph Reed of the Faith and Freedom Coalition added, revving up a crowd Friday at the Rock Springs Church in Milner. “We need it repealed, and we need it replaced.”

Some Georgia Democrats welcome the intensifying attacks, predicting it will further energize Hillary Clinton’s supporters. While the 2010 health care law is reviled by much of the Georgia GOP base, as well as establishment leaders, it is embraced by core Democratic voters.

"The law isn't perfect, but it has helped hundreds of thousands of Georgians get covered," said state Rep. Scott Holcomb, a DeKalb County Democrat. "More work needs to be done on costs, but I don't see any concrete alternatives from those who are yelling the loudest."

The timing of the announcement about the rate hikes came as Obamacare customers prepared to shop for new plans — enrollment season begins Monday. It also sparked new tension in the presidential race, with Donald Trump declaring “it’s over for Obamacare,” in repeating his call for the repeal of the law.

In Georgia, the administration report estimates unsubsidized premiums for a hypothetical 27-year-old buying a benchmark “second-lowest cost silver plan” will jump by 15 percent, from $237 to $273. The hike is sharper in competitive states, including Arizona and North Carolina.

In all, premiums for a midlevel plan will increase by an average of 25 percent in the 39 states served by the federal marketplace. Still, the administration said that subsidies would cover much of the new premium, particularly for those making less than $30,000.

The rate hikes don’t affect the vast majority of Americans, who get insurance from an employer or through other government programs such as Medicare or Medicaid.

But the increases, coupled with announcements from several large insurers that they are exiting some markets and tales of rising rates for people who buy their own insurance, have given Obamacare’s critics more fuel in the closing days of the race.

‘A better solution’

Jay Wells of Bainbridge took to Facebook when he got a letter from Blue Cross Blue Shield that showed his health care premium for his family of five more than doubled. The picture of a letter showing his rate hike from $711 to $1,872 went viral, and Trump and other GOP leaders tweeted it.

“There’s got to be an answer, and there’s got to be a better solution,” said Wells, who said he’s heard from scores of other people after his post caught fire. “We’re only after what we’ve always been promised: affordable health care. I don’t care if it’s a Democratic solution or a Republican solution. I want to see an American solution.”

Edra Matthews, an Atlanta clothing retailer with about 10 staffers, said premiums for her business shot up about 40 percent over the past 18 months.

“I’m looking at all the options. I have provided health care for my employees for years,” she said. “But we can’t afford what we are doing now. And it’s 100 percent because of Obamacare.”

And it didn’t take long for Lucretia Hughes, a financial planner from Winder, to bring up the rising health insurance rates this week at a GOP rally. She called the premium increases her family and friends have faced a “mini-mortgage payment.”

“My mother is a staunch Democrat, but her health care premium has gone up so much that she would rather pay a fine,” Hughes said. “And that’s a shame.”

Both candidates plan substantial changes to the health care law, but they have drastically different visions.

Clinton, long a champion of the 2010 overhaul, has said she wants to explore allowing middle-age Americans to buy Medicare coverage if they want, and she wants to expand federal subsidies to allow more people to buy insurance. She’s also said she supports the idea of a government-run insurance option in markets with limited competition.

Trump wants to repeal the Affordable Care Act and replace it with a new system for buying health insurance. At rallies in battleground states, he’s frequently referred to double-digit increases in premiums, saying “stopping Hillary’s health care takeover is one of the single most important reasons” to vote for him.

Much of Georgia’s GOP establishment are staunch opponents of the law. But after it survived a gantlet of legal challenges, and Obama’s 2012 re-election gave it four more years to take root, many Republicans signaled it was time to accept the law.

A growing number of Georgia Republicans, for instance, said it was time to expand the Medicaid program under the law — a notion many of them once vilified as too expensive.

And Democrats also said Obama’s popularity in Georgia — an Atlanta Journal-Constitution poll this month showed 50 percent of Georgians gave him a favorable rating — will make it harder for Republicans to attack the plan.

“While they attack Obamacare, they are attacking a president who has a higher approval rating here than House Speaker Paul Ryan,” said Tharon Johnson, a veteran Democratic strategist who ran Obama’s Southern re-election campaign in 2012, referring to Ryan’s dim favorability rating in the AJC poll. “All Democrats have to do is to keep talking about the positive results for Obamacare.”