http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/mar/9/obamacare-premiums-spike-law-cheaper-expected/By Stephen Dinan - The Washington Times - Updated: 11:33 a.m. on Monday, March 9, 2015
Obamacare exchange customers could see a significant spike in their premiums over the next few years as insurers face pressures from both the government and the marketplace, the Congressional Budget Office said Monday in a new analysis finding Obamacare is both cheaper and less comprehensive than predicted.
The CBO said the exchanges and other new medical coverage under the Affordable Care Act will cost the government slightly more than half a trillion dollars over the next five years, which is about $200 billion less than than the $710 billion projected when the law was enacted in 2010.
Some of that is due to tweaks to the law, and to changing economic conditions, but the CBO and its fellow scorekeeper, the Joint Committee on Taxation, said medical care costs have also grown at a slower rate than projected, helping lower payments for both private care and for government programs such as Medicaid and Medicare.
“Although it is unclear how much of that slowdown is attributable to the recession and its aftermath and how much to other factors, the slower growth has been sufficiently broad and persistent to persuade CBO and JCT to significantly lower their projections of federal costs for health care,” the CBO said in its report.
The lower costs are at least in part due to fewer people gaining coverage.
The CBO predicted 11 million people will be enrolled in insurance exchanges in 2015, rising to 21 million next year. Both of those are lower than initial projections.
Of those 11 million using the exchanges this year, about 8 million will be getting tax subsidies to help pay for their plans. The average subsidy is $3,960.
By 2020, about 23 million Americans will be using the exchanges and 17 million will be getting government help, at an average tax payment of $5,070.
At its peak over the next decade, the law is projected to help ensure that 91 percent of all residents have health coverage — still leaving a significant chunk of the population without coverage.
The new health law estimates came as part of the CBO’s latest 10-year budget projections, which show the deficit this year likely to be about the same as in fiscal 2014, dropping slightly in 2016 and 2017, and then beginning a steady climb again to top $1 trillion by 2025.
Taxes will average about 18 percent of gross domestic product over that decade, or about what the average has been in the last 40 years. Spending will average 22 percent of GDP, or slightly higher than the average in recent decades.
