OBAMACARE STICKER SHOCK: PREMIUMS TO SPIKE 20%

OBAMACARE STICKER SHOCK: PREMIUMS TO SPIKE 20%

Forecast counters feds' 'misleading' predictions

Cheryl Chumley

Obamacare premium costs are going to surge by 20.3 percent on average in 2016, a massive hike that counters the much more modest 7.5 percent increase predicted by feds.

The 20 percent increase was discovered during an analysis by the Daily Caller News Foundation. And it comes as open enrollment for Obamacare has just kicked off.

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As the Daily Caller reported: “The discrepancy is because the government excluded price data for three of the four Obamacare health insurance plans when the officials issued their recent forecast claiming enrollees would face only a 7.5 percent average rate increase in 2016. When data for all four plans are included, premium costs will actually rise on average 20.3 percent next year.”

For comparison purposes, Obamacare costs in 2015 rose only two percent.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Center for Medicare Services, the entity that oversees Obamacare, miscalculated the degree of price hikes because officials failed to include data for the Bronze, Gold and Platinum plans. They only based estimates using data for the Silver plan, which is what the IRS uses as a “benchmark” program for tax purposes, the Daily Caller reported.

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Conversely, the 20.3 percent number is the average for all the plans. But it’s only an average, which means some states’ enrollees, like Utah, could see hikes by 45 percent. Illinois residents may see increases by 42 percent; Tennessee residents, by 36 percent, the Daily Caller reported.

Pacific Research Institute senior fellow in business and economics Wayne Winegarden told the Daily Caller News Foundation the feds’ 7.5 percent price-hike forecast is a “misleading and a meaningless statistic” that isn’t “relevant to any individual in any state,” he said.

 Read more at http://www.wnd.com/2015/11/obamacare-sticker-shock-premiums-to-spike-20/#W0mGEYW61j4HuimI.99