Benjamin D. Sommers takes a look at why the annual Spring panic around premium increases for ACA marketplace plans is “overblown.” The fact that most increases will be reduced before open enrollment and that most consumers received premium tax credits are both cited as reasons the initial proposed increases are not a big deal.
Read the full article on The New England Journal of Medicine.
Sommers goes on to give historical data about actual premium growth, and discusses risk factors that could impact premium pricing in the future. The concluding paragraph encourages readers to not “miss the forest for the trees in taking stock of the law. Premium growth — even when it does reach into the double-digit range that sparks such substantial media attention — is a policy challenge to be examined and addressed and is also part of the general historical pattern that precedes the ACA. But it is hardly evidence of systematic failure, and observers who use these headlines to argue that the law as a whole should be scrapped ignore the devastating effect that repeal would have on the estimated 20 million Americans who have thus far gained insurance under the law.”
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