You understand that doesnt prove anything, right?
btw we can fact check Factcheck.org here:
Health Care Summit Squabbles
They were completely wrong. Lamar Alexander was right. Premiums have risen substantially as a result of Obamacare.
Premiums HAD risen substantially BEFORE the ACA. As a matter of FACT it was substantial increases like a 39 percent rise sought by Anthem Blue Cross in 2010 that helped give impetus to the law. Increases before the ACA were out of control.
Obamacare Premium Hikes Relatively Modest, Non-Partisan CBO Says
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The average premium for an Obamacare benchmark plan will rise slightly in 2015 and increase about 6 percent a year during the rest of this decade, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) said on Monday in a report the White House trumpeted as proof its healthcare reform was working.
Obamacare marketplace plans are available over a range of quality levels, from lower-cost "bronze" coverage to top quality "platinum" plans. The CBO report looked at mid-tier "silver" plans that are used as benchmarks in determining how much federal money consumers can receive under the law to help cover insurance costs.
Government researchers concluded that the average annual premium of the second-lowest-cost "silver" plan would increase by only about 2.6 percent to $3,900 in 2015 from the current $3,800.
The cost would rise more rapidly to $4,400 in 2016 and about $6,900 in 2024. "Thus, premiums are projected to increase by about 6 percent per year on average from 2016 to 2024," the CBO report said.
The CBO also noted that its 2016 projection is 15 percent lower than its initial forecast in 2009.
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Five facts about Obamacare and health premiums
Insurance premium growth has wiped out the last decade of wage growth. Overall, that middle-income family saw its income go up by $23,000, from $76,000 in 1999 to $99,000 in 2009 — not too bad. But rising health-care costs in the form of increased insurance premiums and co-pays, ate up nearly all of that. Factor in that spending, as a recent Health Affairs article did, and the average family only had $95 a month more in available income than it did a decade ago.
The Affordable Care Act has returned more than $1 billion in premiums to consumers in the form of insurance rebates. The health care law requires insurance companies to spend at least 80 percent of subscriber dollars on medical care. If they spend less than that, the difference must be made up in a rebate to insurance subscribers.
In 2011, the year that provision went into effect, health insurers sent out $1.1 billion in rebates to 12.8 million American households. They averaged $151 per household, with Vermont seeing the highest rebates (their average check was $807 in the individual market). Using the numbers from the Commonwealth Fund above, that would work out to a 1 percent decrease in premiums for the average family.
5. Regulators rejected or lowered at least 924 insurer rate hikes in 2010. While the federal government cannot reject rate hikes, regulators in 37 states do have that authority. The Government Accountability Office looked at how frequently regulators exercised that authority. It found that in 36 states, regulators had turned back over 900 rate increases. Colorado and Ohio overturned more than 100 each.
So, how'd they get 14 insurance companies to lower or withdraw their rates? They sat down and negotiated with the insurers. And it worked. "Officials from the California Department of Insurance told us that they negotiated with carriers to reduce proposed rates by 2 percentage points to 25 percentage points in 2010," the GAO report says. "These officials also told us that they negotiated with one carrier not to raise rates in 2010 although the carrier had originally proposed a 10-percent average increase in rates."
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