Obamacare Increases Man’s Premiums 300%, Supporters Call It a Success Story

[MJ]

October 3, 2013
Obamacare Increases Man’s Premiums 300%, Supporters Call It a Success Story
By Michael F. Cannon

Obamacare’s health insurance Exchanges opened for business, in most states, sort of, on Tuesday. Millions of people have reportedly flooded the Exchanges, but have had so much difficulty using the web sites that reporters have had a hard time finding anyone who has successfully enrolled in an Obamacare plan. The Washington Post’s Sarah Kliff writes:

Just moments after writing a blog post Thursday morning, about the lack of information on Obamacare enrollees, Enroll America reached out with contact information for Chad Henderson, a 21-year-old in Georgia who had successfully enrolled in coverage on the federal marketplace.

Chad is evidently a scarce commodity.

It was a little difficult to reach Henderson, mostly because so many other reporters wanted to talk to him. “I’m supposed to talk to the Chattanooga Times Free Press in a half hour,” Henderson said. “And The Wall Street Journal is supposed to call.”

Luckily, Henderson managed to squeeze me in for a few minutes.

Kliff reports that after a three-hour ordeal, Chad bought an Obamacare plan that cost him $175 per month – pretty steep, considering he makes less than $11,500 per year. His Obamacare premium comes to least 18 percent of his income. And no, Chad is not eligible for subsidies.

Compare that to what Chad could have paid if he bought one of the pre-Obamacare plans still available on eHealthInsurance.com until December 31. The cheapest such plan for someone meeting Chad’s profile is just $44.72 – as little as 5 percent of his annual income and about one-quarter of his Obamacare premium.

I can’t yet say whether Chad’s $175 premium is the lowest-cost plan available to him through the Exchange. (I’m in the process of researching that. Let’s just say it’ll probably take a few hours.) But it’s probably close. The cheapest plan available to him through eHealthInsurance.com after Obamacare’s community-rating price controls take effect in 2014, and drive up premiums for young, healthy people market-wide, is $190.23. That’s with the maximum cost-sharing allowed under Obamacare. So it appears Obamacare quadrupled Chad’s premiums, and Enroll America thinks that is a success story.

To me, the most interesting part is that Chad didn’t buy health insurance when it was available to him for just $45 per month, but did buy it at an unsubsidized $175/month premium. Why? Again, Kliff:

He describes himself as a supporter of President Obama who has anxiously awaited Obamacare’s rollout…

Part of his decision was ideological: He wants the health-care law to succeed.

Okay…but why does he support the law and want it to succeed? If it’s because he likes the idea of young, healthy, low-income people like himself paying the medical bills for older, sicker, higher-income people, he didn’t have to wait for Obamacare to come along. He could have just sent money to old people. Was he previously spending this money that way? If he supports the law because he wants to support President Obama, was he previously using the same money to support the president (e.g., sending that money to the president’s campaigns and political organizations, or the federal Treasury)? Did Chad do it for the fame? He can spend his money however he wants, as far as I’m concerned. I’m just trying to understand.

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