When the Affordable Care Act was debated in Congress, and even earlier as progressives geared up for the fight, public health advocates often repeated the phrase, “health coverage will not be affordable until everyone has coverage.” The idea was that forcing everyone to have similar coverage, while charging similar rates, would somehow make coverage affordable. Or at least it would make coverage affordable for those with pre-existing conditions, if not for those who were healthier. I recently ran across someone who is blaming the high cost of Obamacare on the repeal of the individual mandate. Absent was any discussion about poorly crafted plan design, a multiplicity of mandated benefits and costly regulations.
Category: Affordable Care Act
Wednesday Links
- Elephants and bats live a long time in part because they don’t get cancer.
- Motherhood drives the earning gap between men and women.
- Is the statistical value of a year of life (which is supposed to drive medical and regulatory decisions) too high?
- Almost half of the adults receiving health insurance via the (Obamacare) exchanges either own or work for small businesses.
- Since Medicare’s inception in 1966, its spending has grown about 1.5 times faster than the economy.
- Why Matt Yglegias rejects the Billionaire Derangement Syndrome.
What’s Wrong with Obamacare?
Taxpayers paid more than $114 billion directly to insurers in 2024 … more than six times as much as in 2014.
Our study shows the correlation between premium growth and subsidy growth is nearly perfect.
In 2024, 90% of subsidy-eligible enrollees had access to plans with net premiums of $10 a month or less.
We found that the market size for unsubsidized Obamacare plans shrank by a quarter, from $23 billion in 2014 to $17 billion in 2024.
Obamacare is a poor value, a product few Americans would voluntarily purchase without subsidies.
Saturday Links
- Obamacare light: “this cautious approach will make it difficult to argue Republicans have a plan to lower costs for the majority of American consumers.”
- Against Republican Food Stamp restrictions. (I don’t agree. In most states you usually must certify your status weekly or bi-weekly to keep receiving Unemployment Compensation.)
- Senate Republican health plan: Eligible individuals age 18 to 49 with incomes below 700 percent of the federal poverty line would get $1,000 annually in 2026 and 2027, while those age 60 to 64 would get $1,500. Those amounts are far less than the $7,500 average deductible for bronze coverage in 2026 or the $10,600 required by the ACA’s catastrophic insurance plans.
- Unique study of the benefits of college admission: cost-benefit calculations show internal rates of return of 26 percent for the students, 16 percent for society (which must pay for the additional education), and 7 percent for the government budget.