More good news today about Obamacare, and some more misleading
information too …
A 25-year-old uninsured New Yorker earning
$25,000 a year will pay as little as $62 a month for
health insurance next year, and someone with identical circumstances living
in Vermont may pay nothing, according to a 17-state survey of premiums under Obamacare.
That’s according to the new Kaiser Family Foundation report which offers the broadest look
yet at what consumers who lack health care coverage will pay for insurance when
the Affordable Care Act takes full effect next year.
Republican officials in states including Ohio, Indiana
and Georgia have
released partial information on premiums, emphasizing big increases for some
customers.
At the same time, some Republican
congressmen are trying to sabotage the system by harassing the “navigators”
that will help people with the ACA enrollment process that begins Oct. 1.
On Aug. 29, Rand Corp. researchers, after looking at 10
states, reported that predictions of sharp increases in premiums were
overstated. “Our analysis found no widespread trend toward sharply higher
prices in the individual market,” Christine Eibner, a Rand senior economist,
said in a statement with the report.
According to Bloomberg news service, the lowest monthly
premium for a 40-year-old in the 17 states surveyed by Kaiser would be $146 in
Baltimore. If that 40-year-old had an annual income of $29,000, government
subsidies would reduce the monthly cost to $111, according to the report from
the nonprofit health-research group.
According to Kaiser's findings, a single 40-year-old in Los Angeles
could buy the second-cheapest mid-level plan for $255 per month. But if that
person makes just under $30,000 per year, he or she will only have to pay $193
per month after receiving a tax subsidy.
Strikingly, in every city analyzed,
a family of four with two 40-year-old adults and a household income of $60,000
per year would pay $409 per month for the second-cheapest Silver plan after
receiving subsidies. That’s more or less in line with the average $4,565 per year that
workers currently contribute towards their employer-sponsored health
insurance plans.
The report also finds good news for younger and
older Americans. In Seattle, a 25-year-old making $28,725 per year will pay
$193 per month for a Silver plan after subsidies and $138 per month for the
cheapest Bronze plan after subsidies. For a single 60-year-old with the same
income, those number would be $193 per month and $44 per month, respectively,
after factoring in subsidies. And in Burlington, Vermont, both a single
25-year-old making $25,000 per year and a 60-year-old couple making a combined
$30,000 per year would pay nothing at all for the cheapest, bare-bones Bronze
plan.
Yet a third study has been released by a private group
and that report is highly misleading because it cites prices on the Obamacare
exchanges – the online marketplaces – but it doesn’t calculate the impact of the
tax credits that are a key aspect of the entire system.
So, this study by Avalere Health claims that insurance
premiums for a 40-year-old buying a mid-range plan will average close to $330 a
month. But that’s before the tax subsidy is computed.
For example, using
Kaiser’s ACA calculator, within seconds you can learn this: a 40-year-old
earning $40,000 a year faces an initial price tag of nearly $7,700 with an
average, mid-range Obamacare plan. Sounds like a lot of money. But the
calculator also shows you that tax credits will lower the 40-year-old’s actual
payment to $2,587, or $215 a month.
Bottom line: In paycheck terms, that’s
$54 a week for fairly decent coverage.
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