Premiums For Employer-Based Family Health Insurance Up One Fifth Since Obamacare
The Kaiser Family Foundation/Health Research Educational Trust has released its 2016 Employer Health Benefits Survey. The survey covers almost 1,900 private and public (non-federal) employers. The results show Obamacare has not reduced premiums, which have increased by one fifth for family plans since 2011.
The good news is the proportion of beneficiaries with “High-Deductible Health Plans with a Savings Option” (HDHP/SOs) has increased from 20 percent to 29 percent in two years. Only four percent of covered worker were in such plans in 2006, and 17 percent in 2011. (In 2015, a HDHP had to have a minimum deductible of $1,300 for single coverage and $2,600 for family. The “Savings Option” would be a Health Savings Account or Health Reimbursement Arrangement.)
These plans were first available in 2005, and correspond with an immediate slowdown in the rate of growth of employer-based benefits. In real terms (adjusted for changes in the Consumer Price Index), dropped from double digits in the early 2000s to single digits after 2005 and bottoming out at an increase in premium of just two percent in 2009. There was an immediate jump of 11 percent in 2011, Obamacare’s first year. Since then, both High Deductible Health Plans and the burden of Obamacare have continued to grow. This struggle has resulted in mid-single digit premium growth.
See Figure I below the fold:
The chart is a nice touch. Draw it out another 5 years then we are talking about some real problems.
$10,000 premiums for individual plans during Hillabeast first term.
Lee, you just told us that Blue Cross was approved for a 43% rate increase for 2017 on the Obamacare Exchange. NewsFlash from Omaha: Blue Cross drops out of Nebraska’s Obamacare marketplace!!
43% was not enough.
Is any insurance company on NE Obamacare Marketplace in 2017?
Get Deplorable – Vote TRUMP 2017
This chart must be wrong. President Obama promised not only would Americans be able to keep their doctors and insurance plans under ObamaCare, but they would save an average of $2,500 per family off their annual insurance premiums.
So the blue line in actually going down or Obama LIED.
Gruber, recall, later followed up on advising Obama in the crafting of ObamaCare by publicly saying in speeches in numerous states that this argument had been calculated to exploit “the stupidity of the American voter.”
Obama has now is telling us: Clinton, he said, was the most qualified candidate for president EVER. More qualified than George Washington, winner of the Revolution. More qualified than Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of Independence. Than James Madison, chief author of the Constitution and Bill of Rights.
American voter – R U still stupid?
Remember if you like your plan you can keep your plan?
Not so fast my friends.
BCBS of Nebraska just had a 43% rate increase approved by insurance regulators .
They responded with a NO THANK YOU!
BCBS of Nebraska announces they are pulling out of the Individual Exchange for the upcoming 2017 year.
Yes Nebraska’s largest health insurer has left the building
http://www.omaha.com/livewellnebraska/health/blue-cross-drops-out-of-nebraska-s-obamacare-marketplace/article_ba159306-81b9-11e6-a263-039caebdcf91.html
You are a racist Lee.
Blue Cross in NE is disappearing just like Hillary’s emails.
Hillary told Iowans she LOVES Snapchat Because “Those Messages Disappear All By Themselves” (August 14, 2015)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l_cC0mAsPKQ
Hey guys, did you read the article you are commenting on? The article was about group insurance, and all your comments are about the death spiral of individual insurance.
Still, John, the article itself was a little fuzzy. You brought up a 20% increase in group premiums over 5 years, which is about 4% a year.
But you did not prove that this is exceptionally bad, historically, and you did not offer proof that ACA regulations caused the increase.
I read the damn bill, and it seemed to me that 90% of the ACA regulations were about individual insurance, not group.
The article seemed to be searching for one more thing to blame on Obamacare. I sell group insurance, and the ACA has had some impact, but it is far more complex than the article suggested.
No, I did not prove or even suggest it was exceptionally bad. The point of the chart, which goes back to 1999, is that it appears not to have had much effect on employer-based trend. Although, other effects (such as High-Deductible Health Plans and HSAs) just started rolling quite shortly before Obamacare was signed.
I suggested the two effects compete. What is unique about my chart is it adjusts the figures for inflation, which the original Kaiser Family Foundation report does not.
Four percent premium increase in effectively zero general inflation is not any better than seven percent premium increase in four percent general inflation.
Average family group premiums – $18,500
Median household income – $56,000
Family group premiums almost 33 percent of median incomes
Haven’t we had enough premium increases over median wage gains?
Good point about the inflation…..
but John, the very headline of your article sure felt to me like you were blaming Obamacare.