Forbes explains that despite recent claims to the contrary by liberals and journalists that fell for California Democrats "sleight of hand," health care premiums for Californians will actually rise from 64 percent to 146 percent.
Here’s what happened. Last week, Covered California—the name for the state’s Obamacare-compatible insurance exchange—released the rates that Californians will have to pay to enroll in the exchange.
“The rates submitted to Covered California for the 2014 individual market,” the state said in a press release, “ranged from two percent above to 29 percent below the 2013 average premium for small employer plans in California’s most populous regions.”
That’s the sentence that led to all of the triumphant commentary from the left. “This is a home run for consumers in every region of California,” exulted Peter Lee.
Except that Lee was making a misleading comparison. He was comparing apples—the plans that Californians buy today for themselves in a robust individual market—and oranges—the highly regulated plans that small employers purchase for their workers as a group. The difference is critical.
Obamacare to double individual-market premiums
If you’re a 25 year old male non-smoker, buying insurance for yourself, the cheapest plan on Obamacare’s exchanges is the catastrophic plan, which costs an average of $184 a month. (That’s the median monthly premium across California’s 19 insurance rating regions.)
The next cheapest plan, the “bronze” comprehensive plan, costs $205 a month. But in 2013, on eHealthInsurance.com (NASDAQ:EHTH), the average cost of the five cheapest plans was only $92.
In other words, for the average 25-year-old male non-smoking Californian, Obamacare will drive premiums up by between 100 and 123 percent.
Under Obamacare, only people under the age of 30 can participate in the slightly cheaper catastrophic plan. So if you’re 40, your cheapest option is the bronze plan. In California, the median price of a bronze plan for a 40-year-old male non-smoker will be $261.
But on eHealthInsurance, the average cost of the five cheapest plans was $121. That is, Obamacare will increase individual-market premiums by an average of 116 percent.
The examples continue, read the entire article, but the bottom line is liberals claiming Obamacare would actually lower California healthcare premiums, allowed themselves to be conned, either because they wanted it to be true or because they are truly that gullible.
The next article, via Fox News, simply confirms what businesses and now even unions, have recently asserted, that Obama's promise of "If you like your health care plan, you'll be able to keep your health care plan," was an outright lie.
New health insurance rules under ObamaCare could lead to a host of personal insurance plans being canceled as early as this fall, a scenario expected to cause consumer confusion.A reminder of the most terrifying part of Obamacare, the IRS, "the same agency that is currently under investigation for targeting ordinary Americans for their political beliefs will now act as the “key enforcer” of your healthcare."
Under the federal overhaul, those policies that cannot meet new insurance plan standards may be discontinued. This means individuals, and some small businesses, that rely on those plans will have to find new ones.
Full Wake up America coverage on the Obamacare disaster can be found here.
