On Monday, we learned that premiums will increase next year by double-digits under Obamacare.
“Before taxpayer-provided subsidies, premiums for a midlevel benchmark plan will increase an average of 25 percent across the 39 states served by the federally run online market, according to a report from the Department of Health and Human Services,” wrote the Associated Press’ Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar. “Some states will see much bigger jumps, others less.”
Yikes, right? Combine that with fewer choices, as insurance companies have been pulling out of the Obamacare exchanges, and the healthcare law so beloved by Democrats and defended by the Obama administration is looking like the disaster Republicans always said it would be.
How then, should Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, who has been defending Obamacare throughout her campaign, react to the news?
“There’s a clear choice in this election: Either we’re going to help American families and tackle healthcare cost issues, or we’re going to throw 20 million people off their coverage and let the insurance companies write the rules again,” the Clinton campaign said in a statement tweeted out by ABC News. “Hillary Clinton wants to build on the progress we’ve made and fix what’s broken, while Donald Trump would rip up the [Affordable Care Act], reverse the progress we have made and start this fight all over again.”
“Clinton has a serious plan to improve choices and increase competition, including a public option and a Medicare buy-in,” the statement continued. “She’ll also do more for small businesses, take on the pharmaceutical companies for driving up drug prices, and provide tax relief for out-of-pocket expenses.”
It’s hard to take this statement seriously from a candidate who says she’ll keep Obamacare intact even as it exacerbates the problems in healthcare pricing.
Does she want Donald Trump to get elected? Or does she just feel that confident about her victory? When she argues that he would destroy a law that’s making things worse, it doesn’t seem like the best line of attack.
And just a reminder: The reason millions more people have health insurance now is mostly because of expansion of the free Medicaid program — a separate issue from the problems currently being experienced. To the (modest) extent that gains in the rate of insurance overlap with the Obamacare exchanges where premiums are now skyrocketing, the main reason for enrollment in the exchanges is that Obamacare created a penalty for those who choose to go uninsured. As a taxpayer, a premium-payer, or a penalty-payer, you get hit any which way you approach it.
Ashe Schow is a commentary writer for the Washington Examiner.
