Californians to Experience a 13 Percent Obamacare Price Hike in 2017
Wasn't the Affordable Care Act meant to make health care affordable?.
Colin Dunn / CC BY 2.0
Wasn’t the Affordable Care Act meant to make health care … affordable?
From the Los Angeles Times:
Premiums for Californians’ Obamacare health coverage will rise by an average of 13.2% next year — more than three times the increase of the last two years and a jump that is bound to raise debate in an election year.
The big hikes come after two years in which California officials had boasted that the program helped insure hundreds of thousands people in the state while keeping costs moderately in check. … On Tuesday, officials blamed next year’s premium hikes in the program that insures 1.4 million Californians on rising costs of medical care, including expensive specialty drugs and the end of a mechanism that held down rates for the first three years of Obamacare.
For consumers, the impact will depend on whether they get taxpayer-supported subsidies for their premiums and whether they are willing to switch to less-expensive plans that may come with higher co-pays and deductibles. Changing plans could also mean a new network of physicians, which could be disruptive to care for those with chronic conditions.
Read more.
— Posted by Natasha Hakimi Zapata
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Health & Wellness
Eighteen million Americans could soon lose access to Medicaid.
The people of Mumbra fear that the government is threatening their independence and their identity.
Its decision on an appeal of a lower-court ruling declaring part of the statute unconstitutional is unlikely to come before the election.
Despite campaign promises to replace the Affordable Care Act with something better, the uninsured rate has risen on the president's watch.
The program's complexity was always a problem, and many low-income people still don't understand they can get financial help with premiums.
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