Last week, House Republicans
tried to have a hearing on the horrors of Obamacare but their witnesses—CEOs of insurance companies—refused to play along and the hearing was a flop, at least for Republicans. One of the themes they were trying to push was that health insurance premiums are going to skyrocket, a premise the executives refused to confirm. That's not going to stop Republicans from pushing that line with every public announcement from an insurer about next year's premiums. But here's what they're not going to talk about: the
law protects enrollees from big premium hikes.
But they left out one crucial piece of information: Obamacare is designed to protect enrollees against year-to-year price fluctuations. Warning about higher premiums leaves an impression that people will pay more, and the GOP surely won't hesitate to push that line again whenever news of rising premiums breaks.
But they're not telling the whole story.
About 85 percent of the people who are enrolled in private insurance through the exchanges got subsidies from the federal government—so about 85 percent of the 8 million enrollees won't see a premium hike. And because of the competition on the marketplace, insurers will be keeping an eye on what other companies are doing with premiums, knowing that people will be free to change plans in the next enrollment period. The competition part of the law will see to that. That will help the 15 percent of enrollees who aren't eligible for subsidies, and to an extent the people who signed up outside of the exchanges.
That's just one more overhyped "horror" story from Republicans, one that we'll be hearing regularly until November. Never mind that it's not true, because that surely won't stop them repeating it. But it's going to be awfully inconvenient for them when it doesn't happen. Just like the huge success of 8 million enrollments has been.