ACA (Obamacare) Premiums

I have noticed that Texas ACA premiums are reasonable (e.g., $137/mo. for a 43 year old on the Bronze Plan with Blue Cross Blue Shield).

If you want a quote and do not have a state exchange, you can call the federal exchange now and get a quote over the phone, or wait and get a quote over the federal exchange website in early December when the website is functioning. If you want just an estimate instead of an actual quote, you can go to the estimate website:

https://www.healthcare.gov/find-premium-estimates/


For years, premiums have been going up 15-20% every year. Hopefully, with the increased insurance competition and more efficient spreading of risk under the ACA, and other cost-savings, the ACA will slow that premium growth.

I know Forbes and others have done analyses, but when I look at the ACA premiums, they do not appear that bad.

I was surprised after all of the horror stories I have been hearing.

It seems that Forbes may skew the results by looking at a young age (27) and the very bottom age (50) of the older age bracket.

I wonder if they instead looked at age 39 (instead of age 27) and at age 59 (instead of age 50) if their results might be different. Further, they do not account for the what the existing past-year plans would increase without the ACA.

Also very popular with ACA enrollees is adding their college age kids to the plans, acceptance of preexisting conditions, and no cap. Further, what my friends in the insurance business are telling me is that the bulk of the "cancellations" are merely tweaked plans to cover the essential benefits with little or no premium increase, sometimes at an even lower cost, depending on age and state, and other factors.

In other words, the "cancellations" give ACA-compliant replacement plans not very different from the existing deficient plans. Typically, the existing plan replaced had a cap or did not have maternity coverage. Also, for ages 50+, the ultra bare-bones catastrophic plans have to tweaked to the bare-bones Bronze Plan. In all, not a huge difference.

Once the smoke clears, the ACA may very well become popular and actually a campaign advantage for Democrats in 2014 and 2016. As even Senator Cruz said a few months ago in an interview with Rush, there may be no turning back once Americans become "addicted" to the ACA "candy."