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The
Cleveland Plain Dealer
Ohio
insurance department claims
Obamacare premium rates to rise 41 percent
By Natalie Villacorta
August 01, 2013
CLEVELAND,
Ohio -- Ohio insurance
regulators Thursday released rates for health insurance to be sold on
the new
state marketplace and said premiums for individuals will rise an
average of 41
percent compared with 2013 rates.
That
average brought immediate
condemnation from critics of the Affordable Care Act, with U.S. House
Speaker
John Boehner, a southwest Ohio Republican, calling it “irrefutable
evidence”
that the law known as Obamacare is driving up costs and hurting the
economy.
But
the average 2014 premium of
$332.58 a month for individuals, unveiled by Ohio Lt. Gov. Mary Taylor,
masks the
fact that for many individuals, premiums and out-of-pocket medical
expenses
will go down.
The
marketplace, or “exchange,”
will allow people who do not get coverage through their employers or a
public
program -- a relatively small portion of the population -- to purchase
health
insurance.
Eighty to 90 percent of Americans
using the exchange will be eligible for income-based federal subsidies
to
reduce or eliminate their costs, according to the Congressional Budget
Office.
Those who make less than four times the federal poverty level -- $45,960 a year for a
single person and
$94,200 for a family of four-- will be eligible. A 30 year-old that
makes
$30,000, for example, will be expected to pay only $2,512 in premiums
per year.
That means he or she will pay $209 a month, and the federal government
will
cover about $76.
The
previous state average premium,
which Taylor said was $236 this year, used to calculate the 41 percent
increase
is “artificially low,” said Larry Levitt, Senior Vice President of the
nonpartisan
Kaiser Family Foundation. The 2013 premium is based on an array of
policies,
many of which will no longer be available under the Affordable Care
Act, he
said. Some, for example, only offered catastrophic coverage and
required
deductibles of $10,000 and more...
Read
the rest of the article at the
Plain Dealer
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