The average health insurance premium has risen 5 percent already this year, much faster than the rate of inflation, according to a
blog in The Wall Street Journal.
Salim Furth, a research fellow in macroeconomics at the Heritage Foundation’s Center for Data Analysis, says the group’s microsimulation analysis shows that the increase in Obamacare premiums during 2014 has continued to rise this year.
His research also revealed that there was a massive rise in
nongroup health insurance rates last year, around 50 percent on average, with some consumers facing even higher rates increases.
"The surge in costs has been concentrated among young people, who are generally poorer, healthier and less attached to the labor force than the middle-aged," wrote Furth.
"Young adults in California, which had typical cost increases this year, will pay insurance prices 10 percent higher than last year, according to the Heritage microsimulation."
In the blog in the Journal’s Washington Wire segment, Furth said that as Obamacare detractors predicted, the implementation of the healthcare law has resulted in a quick and steep rise in health insurance premiums.
He added, "The administration sets itself a low bar: Can a law mandating insurance coverage increase insurance coverage? But health insurance is valued for what it may deliver: better health outcomes and smoother finances.
"It remains to be seen whether the steep price of the ACA has bought Americans anything of value."
The Heritage Foundation is a conservative research think tank based in Washington, D.C.
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