The following article by Thomas Huelskoetter and Madeline Twomey was posted on the Center for American Progress website June 13, 2018:
Last year, as part of the recently passed tax law, Congress repealed the Affordable Care Act’s (ACA) individual mandate penalty, despite estimates from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office that this would increase average individual market premiums by 10 percent. The individual mandate fined people who chose to remain uninsured in order to encourage younger and healthier people to purchase health coverage. This resulted in a healthier insurance pool, lowering premiums for everyone.
In recent weeks, state have begun to hit their deadlines for insurers to file their proposed individual market premium rates. The emerging trend from these rate filings is clear: Congress’ repeal of the mandate penalty is significantly driving up premiums.
In many states thus far, insurer rate filings have explicitly pointed to Congress’ actions as a major driver of premium increases.
Continue reading “Rate Filings Make Clear ACA Sabotage is Driving Premiums Up”