Obamacare Enrollment Tumbles as Huge Price Hike Looms.

PREDICTABLE: Obamacare Enrollment Tumbles as Huge Price Hike Looms.

In its latest enrollment report, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services says 9.9 million were still enrolled in ObamaCare exchange plans.
That’s almost 2 million fewer than the administration claimed in the spring, when it bragged that 11.7 million had signed up, and way below the Congressional Budget Office’s earlier forecast of 13 million.
And if this year is anything like last year, that 9.9 million will dwindle further as the year goes on. . . .
Earlier this year, insurers started putting in rate requests for 2016, and in many cases they were gut-wrenchingly high — with some above 50%. Obama told the public not to worry, that state insurance regulators would knock them down to size.
But like every other promise he’s made about his namesake law, this one was phony.
In state after state, insurance commissioners are approving huge rate hikes, based on the fact that the people who’ve signed up for ObamaCare are older and sicker than insurers hoped.
By one estimate, the average rate hike in Oregon — a state that eagerly embraced ObamaCare — is above 24%. Average approved rates are 20% or higher in Alaska, Idaho, Iowa and Kansas.
An analysis by Agile Health Insurance found almost a third of all plans being sold through the federal Healthcare.gov exchange — which covers 36 states — had double-digit rate hikes.

This is why we passed a partisan law and divided the country– a mere increase in 9.9 million new private insurance enrollees, who are forced–at the pain of a mandatory tax–to buy increasingly expensive insurance? It’s not even close to the “universal” coverage the Democrats touted.
If this is President Obama’s “legacy”–combined with the so-called Iran “deal”–this is pitiful.

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Posted at 1:36 pm by Elizabeth Price Foley