The Kaiser Family Foundation studies premiums on the health insurance exchanges coming to 17 states and the District of Columbia under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. Kaiser finds premiums coming in under what the Congressional Budget Office projected.
Kaiser got its South Dakota information from Sanford and Avera. Dakotacare, the third insurer applying to provide individual coverage on the exchange, didn't send Kaiser enough information.* According to Kaiser's analysis, if individuals buy the cheapest "bronze" plan, the one with the highest out-of-pocket costs for patients, Sanford will charge a monthly premium of $188 for a 25-year-old, $239 for a 40-year-old, and $508 for a 60-year-old. A family of four with two 40-year-old adults can get Sanford's bronze plan for $716 a month.
(I'm 42. For a $3500-deductible plan, Sanford currently charges me $201 a month.)
But kick in the tax credit and look what happens. The PPACA break on premiums depends on income, with the intent of making sure that folks in various income brackets pay no more than a certain bearable percentage of their income for health care. On an income of $25K, the single 25-year-old sees the effective Sanford bronze premium drop a third, to $124 a month. The family of four making $60K a year sees their health insurance cost drop more than half, to $335 a month.
Even in South Dakota, Obamacare means significant savings on health insurance. But our savings won't be as big as elsewhere. Charts on pages 4 and 5 of the Kaiser analysis show the silver and bronze premiums for single purchasers age 25 and 40 at 250% of the poverty line (sorry: there are a lot of numbers to look at here!). South Dakota has the fourth-highest bronze premiums before subsidy for both ages on the 18-state/DC list, behind Indiana, New York, and Vermont. Add the subsidies, and South Dakotans are left with the highest bronze-plan premiums in the sample. A 40-year-old single Sioux Falls resident making $28,725 a year will pay $168 a month for a bronze insurance plan. A 25-year-old single Sioux Fallsian will pay $173 (five bucks more! age before beauty!) New Yorkers, whose unsubsidized bronze premium in both age groups is $308, will see their subsidized premium drop to $111.
Obamacare's going to work. Unfortunately for South Dakotans, it's going to work even better in other states.
*I don't know if Kaiser looked at this July 25 sheet from the South Dakota Division of Insurance, but Sanford and Avera appear to be pounding Dakotacare on premiums for all levels of individual plans on the exchange.
As you noted, Mr. Heidelberger...Obamacare is doing very very well in the blue (Democratic) states however the rollout is a bit slower in the obstruction (Republican) states due to failure to accept that Democrats actually help ALL the voters. http://www.healthcare.gov BUY LOWER COST HEALTHCARE HERE
Point well taken Porter. Additionally, we will see higher premiums as a result of our lack of competition with health insurance in the state.
Are the premiums really higher here though? When you toss in the subsidies as noted by Cory, the price is much lower. When you show that to the hardcore republicans in general, they look as if someone has kicked them in the tender spots. Obamacare will show all that not only government works for them now regarding healthcare, but next year it will be even more significant. I look for small group to all but disappear next year and only small needs for well compensated employees. As more and more prices drop, it will be noted that this Obamacare is a disaster for the right wing and it could not have happened to a more deserving crowd.
if the savings are realized through tax breaks, perhaps the entire mess could be scrapped and replaced with a tax credit for insurance. Wouldn't that have been a much simpler solution: offer tax credits to people who buy health insurance? Forget all this other stuff?
Because, Anne, the exchange is supposed to make it easier for individuals to compare and purchase plans. It also sets standards for the insurance so we aren't subsidizing really awful plans.
But I'm o.k. with scrapping the PPACA for something much simpler: Medicare for Everyone.
Anne, in that case, we would have gotten tax credits on a higher bill. The insurance companies would still get to charge whatever they like, and it would be like crop insurance--taxpayers subsidize corporate entities. The goal of the exchanges is for insurance companies to compete against one another to offer lower rates, so they don't get to rake in such big profits on health insurance. (Of course, taking out the middleman insurance companies altogether would have been a neater solution still.)
But you don't know the numbers from BCBS yet? At 49 my premium is $288 for a $2,500 deductible, so hopefully that will go down. Maybe in time we'll have a multi-state exchange to create greater choice.