ObamaCare premium hikes are coming. And Obama is on the case. As usual.
Premiums are expected to rise by an average of 11 percent in most parts of the country in fiscal year 2017, according to an alarming report by the Kaiser Family Foundation released Wednesday.
The Obama administration is under pressure to keep premium hikes in check this year: Most customers will get the first notice of their new premium costs in November, just before Election Day.
All but a handful of states have some form of “rate review” – a system that requires health insurers to justify rate increases to the state insurance departments. In some states, health officials have the power to reject “unreasonable” increases.
With the new funding, state health departments can hire outside insurance experts to dig deeper into the proposed rates.
Obama is throwing $22 million at states to higher experts to prove that black is white and 2 + 2 = 5. Who wants to take odds on how many of those experts will have their ObamaCare connections?
I'm no fan of insurance companies, but ObamaCare has basic structural problems driving inevitable rate hikes. And rejecting rate hikes will push more companies to just leave which will eventually reduce ObamaCare to the backdoor single payer system that it was always meant to be. Everything else is just theater.