The title in today's Daily News story is Health care prices in New York City skyrocket, residents anxious for Obamacare policy to kick in. The numbers should blow you away.
One company, GHI HMO Select, is now charging individuals $3,319 a month. And GHI family coverage is a jaw-dropping $8,463 per month, the state Insurance Department said. Those rates are nearly 8% higher than last year's.
That makes the cost of premium family coverage $101, 556 per year in NYC! Who can afford that? And then a family would also need a dental plan.
As "the number of HMOs serving New York City has dropped from 13 in 2004 to seven this year," Managed Health Inc.'s premiums seem to have the biggest one year gain "a whopping 30%"
A decade ago, about 100,000 people in the city bought their own insurance coverage. That's now down to coverage for 13,335, according to the Insurance Department. State officials and consumer groups hope the start of so-called Obamacare in 2014 can reverse the trend. The President's sweeping health care overhaul is expected to increase access and decrease the cost of care.
Well I hope the insurance exchange can knock off about $7,463 per month from that GHI family coverage. Of course there is always coverage that doesn't cover much of anything to fall back on.