Study says NM will see highest increase under ObamaCare: 130 percent

A national study of the Affordable Care Act shows people in New Mexico who buy health insurance on their own could face a huge spike in their premium costs.

The Manhattan Institute for Policy Research, a fiscally conservative think tank based in New York City, looked at 13 states plus the District of Columbia and found that nine states will see increases on average while five will see decreases.

The study says that New Mexico, at 130 percent,will see the steepest rate hike, followed by Vermont (97 percent), South Dakota (83 percent) and Connecticut (50 percent).

"It'll vary," said Yevgeniy Feyman, the study's lead research associate, in a telephone interview with New Mexico Watchdog. "In New York, it will probably be an improvement. In New Mexico, probably not because it's adding a lot more regulations to the market."

Feyman says the study was based on the government's own figures from the www.finder.healthcare.gov website and went by zip codes, looking at the cheapest rates available for individual market insurance plans.

"We focused on the cheapest rates because we assumed that the uninsured that Obamacare targets are generally price-sensitive," Feyman said, "meaning they're uninsured because they can't afford coverage ... We're not skewing the data."

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