According to the Manhattan Institute, premiums climbed by 41 percent on average from 2013 to 2014, and premiums are likely to rise sharply again after two insurance company bailout programs included in Obamacare expire in 2017.
The other sign health insurance markets are in the early stages of a death spiral is the age mix of those buying policies through Obamacare. Originally it was estimated that around 40 percent of enrollees had to be in the relatively healthy 18 to 34-year-old age segment, so their premiums could be used to pay for the health expenses of older, less-healthy enrollees. So far it appears only some 28 percent of enrollees are in that coveted age group, which also comprises around half of the uninsured.
All of this means insurers are getting a risk pool that is less healthy than expected, and more premium hikes are around the corner. While subsidies hide some from the full impact, others in the middle class will not be shielded.
It will undoubtedly take a few years to know for sure, but for anybody concerned about setting off a death spiral or thinking Congress surely didn’t intend to do so, don’t worry. It looks like it’s already here, whether Congress intended it or not.
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Like Social Security, it’s fiscally unsound — in addition to being immoral, ineffective, and inefficient.
Why Statists — on both the left and right — think that they can ignore the “Laws of Economics” is a mystery to me. Like the time the Louisiana Legislature voted to repeal the “Law of Gravity”! Just because the “laws” of Economics are a little more subtle, doesn’t mean they exist.
In this case, the invisible hand of the free market is going to slap the politicians and bureaucrats upside the head and say “fools”!
Where insurance is virtually unregulated — life insurance for example — it’s cheap, easy to get, and simple. (You die; you get paid!) Across the spectrum of “insurance”, the more regulation, the more expensive. Until you get to “health”, “health care”, “health care insurance”, or something else whatever this is. Most regulated; impossible.
And, this fluff about “pre-existing” conditions, is like being able to buy “fire insurance” after the fire!
Also, the routine heath care tests? That’s like “insuring” your cars oil changes. Makes no sense. Go to Jiffy lube for 30$ (but don’t buy the air filters); “insure” it and the paperwork alone will make it $100 at least.
Argh!
So, because there were some without “insurance”, the liberals decided to fool us into a USSR style system. Argh!
Anyone figure out if “we” just took all the money spent on Obamacare, we could have give every uninsured a Congressional style plan.
But, then they wouldn’t have their power over a seventh of the economy.
Anyone think this is going to work out well?
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Posted by reinkefj 
Reinke Faces Life 