As Predicted: Health Insurance Becomes More Expensive Under ObamaCare

Not a surprise for anyone who knows the first thing about economics. For Democrats, however, this is probably unexpected.

The Connecticut Department of Insurance approved Anthem’s request without changes, including a boost of as much as 22.9 percent just to comply with one provision: eliminating annual spending limits per customer. But it’s unclear how much more customers will pay because of the variety of plans and the complexity of other factors, such as a person’s age.

New provisions mandated by federal law to start Thursday include allowing young adults to stay on their parents’ plan until they turn 26, eliminating annual and lifetime limits on the amount of money an insurer spends per customer and mandating that insurers cover the full cost of preventive services, such as mammograms and colonoscopies.

The same is happening across the country. Just yesterday, the California Department of Insurance approved Aetna's requested rate hikes out here.

Aetna, Inc. has gotten the green light to raise premiums, making it the last of California's four major insurers to be cleared for rate hikes by state regulators.

The Department of Insurance approved the move Friday, allowing Aetna to raise rates an average of 19 percent for 65,000 policy holders, according to the Los Angeles Times.

Anthem Blue Cross, Blue Shield of California and Health Net Inc. were allowed to proceed with similar increases last month. The four companies control 90 percent of the state's individual policies.

All the hikes take effect Oct. 1.

The President has repeatedly criticized insurance rate hikes as a response to ObamaCare coverage mandates, but that's because he believes in unicorns and money trees and other shit that don't exist. Quite simply, ObamaCare made the business of providing health care by means of health insurance more expensive. As a result, it's going to cost more.

Here were the President's promises in the week before the law passed:

"You'll be able to buy in, or a small business will be able to buy into this pool," Mr. Obama said. "And that will lower rates, it's estimated, by up to 14 to 20 percent over what you're currently getting. That's money out of pocket."

And that's not all.

Mr. Obama asked his audience for a show of hands from people with employer-provided coverage, what most Americans have.

"Your employer, it's estimated, would see premiums fall by as much as 3,000 percent," said the president, "which means they could give you a raise."

A White House press spokesman later said the president misspoke; he had meant to say annual premiums would drop by $3,000.

He lied.

posted by Gabriel Malor at 02:31 PM

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