Wednesday, October 26, 2016

Quantifying the impact of the Affordable Care Act

Unbiased America:
(K.R.) There are many ways to quantify the impact of the Affordable Care Act on the cost of heath insurance, and it's easy to manipulate the data by comparing apples to oranges or leaving out costs, as some less scrupulous efforts have done. 
But most researchers agree that the law has bent the cost curve upwards, and quite dramatically. 
For example:
No automatic alt text available.• A Brookings 2014 study used actual data and found that "enrollment-weighted premiums in the individual health insurance market increased by 24.4% beyond what they would have had they simply followed…trends."
• S&P Global Institute found that average individual market medical costs increased substantially between 2013 and 2015, up an estimated 69%.
• 2014 insurer data shows that premiums for individual market Qualified Health Plans (QHPs), ACA-compliant plans certified to be sold on exchanges, were much higher than premiums for individual market non-QHPs, mostly plans in existence before 2014 that did not comply with the ACA.

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