With the Affordable Care Act in place, many of its users may
find it wise to seek other healthcare insurance options, before renewing the
plan under the act. Although the system is set up to encourage Americans to renew the
policies they bought last year, recent data analysis from the McKinsey Center
for U.S. Health System Reform shows that many premiums are being raised by
double digit percentages within many of the most popular healthcare plans
available. This forces Americans to make a tough call: bite the bullet and pay
the higher premium to keep the same doctor and hospital coverage or risk losing
this to save some money; the downside being that the cheaper plans often provide a more limited
coverage group of doctors and hospitals.
Overall,
the average increase in price of a silver plan (must cover 70% of average
patient’s medical costs) has gone up 8.4%. However, there needs to be further refinement
in this study to get a more accurate picture of what is going on. The McKinsey
database collected information from only 18 states and Washington, D.C. Hopefully,
as more data is released, researchers can provide an even more accurate account
of these rates. Going forward, many feel that despite the marketplace being
more elastic than ever before, few will actually mobilize and return to the marketplace
to find a new plan. However, if these rates continue to increase, it will be
very interesting to see how the health insurance market is affected.
No comments:
Post a Comment