ObamaCare on federal exchanges increased by average 105% since '13: report
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}FILE - This Nov. 29, 2013, file photo shows a part of the HealthCare.gov website, photographed in Washington. The administration is warning hundreds of thousands of consumers they risk losing taxpayer-subsidized health insurance unless they act quickly to resolve issues about their citizenship and immigration status. (AP Photo/Jon Elswick, File) (AP)
The cost of an individual ObamaCare policy has increased by an average 105 percent from 2013 to 2017 in all 39 states that have used the federal exchange, the Trump administration said Tuesday.
A senior Health and Human Services official said the findings are significant because they look at the increases from the time key ObamaCare provisions took effect, compared to most year-to-year studies that fail to show the 2010 law’s “true effect.”
The average monthly premiums increased from $224 in 2013 to $476 in 2017, according to the report. The HHS official said the cost doubled in 20 of the states and tripled in three of them.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Alabama had the biggest four-year increase, 223 percent, from $178 to $397, the report showed.
The release of the report comes at a critical time for President Trump and fellow Republicans on Capitol Hill.
The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office is scheduled to release its financial audit Wednesday of the ObamaCare overhaul bill that the GOP-led House passed earlier this month and on which the GOP-led Senate is working.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}The HHS official acknowledged that the report had some shortcomings -- including not having information on increases in state-run ObamaCare exchanges or employer-based ones and no information on the increases across a range of policy options.
On the issue of whether the increases were the result of basic increases in health care costs, the official said most analysis show such increases of 6 to 8 percent annually.
Essentially every elected Republican in Washington won on a promise to repeal and replace the law, officially known as the Affordable Care Act.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}However, Democrats have attacked Republicans for their overhaul bill, arguing that if signed into law it will leave millions of Americans without coverage. And the issue has already emerged as a rallying point in Democrats’ efforts to retake the House in the 2018 midterm elections.