How Much Did ObamaCare Increase Your Premiums? A New County-By-County Calculator

The Manhattan Institute has published an interactive map that shows ObamaCare’s effect on premiums for individual health insurance in almost every U.S. county. On average, premiums have increased by 49 percent. However, there is huge variance:

Among men, the county with the greatest increase in insurance prices from 2013 to 2014 was Buchanan County, Missouri, about 45 miles north of Kansas City: 271 percent. Among women, the “winner” was Goodhue County, Minnesota, about an hour southwest of Minneapolis: 200 percent. Overall, the counties of Nevada, North Carolina, Minnesota, and Arkansas haven experienced the largest rate hikes under the law. (Avik Roy, Forbes)

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Comments (13)

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  1. Mitch says:

    90% change for me…

  2. Laura says:

    Mine was 38%

  3. Ava says:

    “On average, premiums have increased by 49 percent.”

    Wasn’t the whole point of the law to take costs down?

  4. Mr. Freedom says:

    Funny, I thought the president promised us a $2,500 DECREASE in premiums for the average family. Then again, that same guy also promised us that we could keep our doctor too.

  5. Linda Gorman says:

    This map misleads. The underlying calculations do not comparine cost before to cost after for the same plan. Instead, it is based on a comparison of the five cheapest plans on healthcare.gov pre-ACA with the five cheapest plans on the ACA exchanges for the most populous zip code in every county.

    So, if pre-ACA plans had a nationwide network with a premium $10 higher than the post-ACA plan with a network of one hospital, the map would show that your premiums fell.

    They assumed that people who were surcharged paid 75 percent more and that people who were denied found insurance elsewhere at three times the original rate.

    This creates distortions. In Colorado, for example, people who were denied a plan could go into the high risk pool and pay at slightly less than 1.4 times the rate of a medically underwritten standard plan.

    Even Colorado insurers don’t believe that rates fell with the advent of the ACA.

  6. Steve says:

    One of the main reasons ObamaCare is raising premiums is because the subsidies distort the market in a manner that raises costs.http://reason.com/blog/2014/06/18/high-cost-of-cheap-health-insurance

  7. James M. says:

    “Obamacare Increased 2014 Individual-Market Premiums By Average Of 49%”

    Well this is to be expected in a single payer, government-run health insurance system. In order for everyone to have insurance, everyone has to pay more.