Obamacare premiums aren’t so bad when compared to what things were like before the law took effect in 2014, according to a new analysis.
Premiums for the Affordable Care Act’s marketplaces are expected to rise by a big amount next year. But experts say the individual market is much better now than it was before Obamacare’s marketplaces went online in 2014.
The marketplaces comprise a majority of the individual market, which is used by people who don’t get insurance through work.
The analysis published in the Health Affairs medical journal blog Thursday found that average premiums for the second-lowest cost silver plan, the mid-grade category of Obamacare plans, in 2014 was between 10 percent to 21 percent lower than premiums in 2013.
“Silver-level [Affordable Care Act] plans cover roughly 17 percent more of an enrollee’s health expenses than pre-ACA plans did, on average,” according to the post authored by Loren Adler and Paul Ginsburg of the Brookings Institution.
“In essence, then, consumers received more coverage at a lower price,” the authors added.
The silver plan premiums are still lower in 2016 than in 2013 and a full 20 percent below what the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office projected in 2009, the post said.
“Health insurance was expensive before the ACA and continues to be, but the ACA appears to have had a salutary impact on premiums even while providing more robust coverage,” the post said.
Insurance experts believe that the big premium increases next year are a market correction after insurers underpriced Obamacare plans in 2014. A recent study from the Commonwealth Fund found that most Obamacare insurers didn’t earn profits in 2014.
California’s Obamacare exchange recently announced a rate increase of 13 percent on average, and a report from the nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation estimates an average hike of 11 percent for silver plans in 2017.
