June 28, 2016

A Closer Look Behind the “Obamacare Surprise”

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


Helaine Olen writes in Slate that Democrats might be in for a nasty surprise just before the election:

A few weeks ago Politico warned of “Obamacare’s November surprise”: Many consumers enrolling in the health care marketplace on Nov. 1, just one week before the election, can expect increased rates.

Given the current disparity in the polls, it’s unlikely that alone could change the outcome of the election. But it is quite possible it will cause a bit of turmoil in the last week of the campaign. It’s beginning to look likely than many shoppers aren’t going to like what they find.

A report from the Kaiser Family Foundation released earlier this month estimated that the average weighted premium increase for the benchmark second lowest cost silver plan will come in at 10 percent. Last year? It was 5 percent.

This is quite possible. As the Obamacare market shakes out and insurers get a better handle on their actual costs, premiums were always bound to go up. But it’s worth pointing out what’s really happening here: insurers lowballed their premiums at first in order to win market share, coming in at rates far below the CBO’s initial estimates. So even if we do see a 10 percent increase in 2017, premiums will still be well under CBO’s initial projections1:

I’m under no illusion that this will change the politics of a premium increase, of course. Someone, somewhere, will have a 30 percent increase, and that’s undoubtedly what Donald Trump will blather on about. Nonetheless, it’s nice to at least be prepared with the truth. And the truth is that even if there’s a sizeable increase next year, premiums will still be about 15 percent less than CBO projected back when Obamacare was first passed.

1It was surprisingly hard to collect these numbers. You’d think CBO would have them all collected in one place somewhere, but if they do, I couldn’t find them. If anyone can point me to something better, let me know. In the meantime, here are my sources:

Projections:

Actual:

WE'LL BE BLUNT:

We need to start raising significantly more in donations from our online community of readers, especially from those who read Mother Jones regularly but have never decided to pitch in because you figured others always will. We also need long-time and new donors, everyone, to keep showing up for us.

In "It's Not a Crisis. This Is the New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, how brutal it is to sustain quality journalism right now, what makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there, and why support from readers is the only thing that keeps us going. Despite the challenges, we're optimistic we can increase the share of online readers who decide to donate—starting with hitting an ambitious $300,000 goal in just three weeks to make sure we can finish our fiscal year break-even in the coming months.

Please learn more about how Mother Jones works and our 47-year history of doing nonprofit journalism that you don't find elsewhere—and help us do it with a donation if you can. We've already cut expenses and hitting our online goal is critical right now.

payment methods

WE'LL BE BLUNT

We need to start raising significantly more in donations from our online community of readers, especially from those who read Mother Jones regularly but have never decided to pitch in because you figured others always will. We also need long-time and new donors, everyone, to keep showing up for us.

In "It's Not a Crisis. This Is the New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, how brutal it is to sustain quality journalism right now, what makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there, and why support from readers is the only thing that keeps us going. Despite the challenges, we're optimistic we can increase the share of online readers who decide to donate—starting with hitting an ambitious $300,000 goal in just three weeks to make sure we can finish our fiscal year break-even in the coming months.

Please learn more about how Mother Jones works and our 47-year history of doing nonprofit journalism that you don't elsewhere—and help us do it with a donation if you can. We've already cut expenses and hitting our online goal is critical right now.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate