Pirate's Cove

While virtually everyone else is saying that the planned Obamacare premium hikes are a bad thing, Team Obama is spinning furiously

(IBD) This week Illinois’ insurance regulator said ObamaCare premiums in the state will jump as high as 55%. The Obama administration’s response to this and other news of massive rate hikes: Don’t worry. Be happy.

Anyone shopping for ObamaCare coverage in Illinois this fall is in for a big shock. The average increase for cheap Bronze plans is likely 44%. It’s 45% for the lowest-cost Silver plan, and 55% for the cheapest Gold plan.

These are the kinds of rate hikes individuals buying insurance will see across the country, as insurers who’ve suffered massive losses are getting huge double-digit premium increases approved by state regulators.

Fewer choices and higher costs are not what President Obama promised when he signed ObamaCare into law.

But now, in the face of this market meltdown, the Obama administration put out a report this week that says, if anything, massive rate hikes are good for ObamaCare enrollees.

The gist of the report is that enrollees won’t even notice the hikes, because their plans are subsidized, and even claims that the bigger the premium hike, the better it is, because Ocare was designed that way. They claim that the higher the premiums go, the more people will get the subsidies.

But this analysis leaves out two important groups: the taxpayers who must pay vastly increased subsidy costs, and the millions of people who aren’t eligible for any ObamaCare subsidies.

Since subsidy money doesn’t grow on trees, those huge rate increases will mean that ObamaCare costs far more than expected, which means taxpayers will have to fork over still more money to cover the subsidies.

Somebody has to pay for this, and it means either higher taxes, shifting money from other government projects, more debt, and/or lowered Ocare services.

Furthermore, roughly 10% receive no subsidies at all, and another 700,000 receive limited subsidies. Furthermore

What’s more, there are nearly 8 million who bought individual plans outside the ObamaCare exchanges. These plans have to comply with all the same ObamaCare rules and regulations, but aren’t eligible for any subsidies.

So, we have premiums going way up, health insurance providers dropping out left and right from Ocare, fewer doctors and medical facilities accepting Ocare, deductibles going up, and a host of other problems. The number of covered by Ocare is half of what was intended, and healthy people are still not joining. Kinda everything opponents said would happen.

Crossed at Right Wing News.