Family’s $12,000 Premium Increase Another Sign Obamacare Has Failed
Over the weekend the Columbus Dispatch reported on one family with pre-existing conditions – the Colby household, with married parents and two teenage daughters – and their struggle to find affordable health insurance coverage:
Two years ago, when the Colbys’ premiums were $2,500 a month, their story outraged Kathleen Sebelius, secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. She mentioned the Dublin family in a speech in Chicago as an example of why the health-care system needed to change.
Two years later, Obamacare passed, and what are the Colbys paying for insurance coverage? “Each month, they write out a check for $3,537” to cover their insurance premiums. That’s a premium increase over the past two years of $1,000 a month, or a whopping $12,000 per year. And because the new law’s poorly designed high-risk pool requires individuals to go without health insurance coverage for six months, the Colbys cannot obtain cheaper coverage without “going bare” and becoming uninsured for that period.
The Ohio story comes mere days after a proposed 22 percent premium increase in Oregon drew public outrage. It’s yet another sign that the 2700-page law has failed to meet the President’s pledge of lowering costs and premiums for struggling American families.
As a reminder, candidate Obama promised to cut premiums by $2,500 for the average American family – and his advisers told the New York Times that “We think we could get to $2,500 in savings by the end of the first term, or be very close to it.” (The Administration’s “progress” towards achieving its $2,500 premium reduction is below.) Compared to the promise of a $2,500 premium cut, a $12,000 annual premium increase for just one family illustrates how far the Obama Administration’s health care rhetoric stands from reality.
