The Department of Health and Human Services estimates that 87% of enrollees of O’Care qualified for subsidies, which allowed them to pay 24% of the actual cost of their plan. According to the New York Post, instead of $376/month, the out-of-pocket cost for these enrollees was $82/month. Obamacare has not lowered insurance costs. Instead, it has shifted the cost from premium payers to taxpayers.
This week, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the IRS regulation authorizing tax credits in federal exchanges is invalid in the 36 states that refused to set up their own insurance exchanges. If the ruling remains, it’s likely that there will be a quadrupling of the cost of health-care insurance premiums to enrollees who received the subsidized price this year, resulting in a stampede out of plans and causing what insurance companies call a “death spiral.”
View here Cato Institute scholar Michael F. Cannon as he answers questions on the importance of the Halbig v. Burwell ruling and what we can next expect.
