<\/p>\n
President Obama defended his health care reform at the White House on Monday, citing three consumers who he says have benefited from the law. But millions of others are losing their insurance policies, or are seeing premiums balloon. (Chip Somodevilla \/ Getty)<\/p>\n
Last week I got news that my health insurance costs are going up. A lot. In 2014 my monthly premium for a family of four will increase 15 percent to $575, my deductible will double to $3,000 and I will lose my drug coverage, adding another $100 a month to my expenses. My story is typical for employees of Gannett, the Detroit News\u2019 parent company, and other businesses across the country.<\/p>\n
Obamacare is not just creating havoc in state exchanges, it is roiling the larger private health insurance market. Costs are skyrocketing thanks to the expensive mandates, regulations and taxes buried in the Affordable Car Act.<\/p>\n
Call it the Unaffordable Care Act.<\/p>\n
Billed by President Barack Obama as a historic reform that would reduce\u00a0heath insurance costs by $2,500 a year<\/a>\u00a0and cover 40 million uninsured, the program is dictating terms to every health insurer while offering employees a grim choice of rising costs with their company plan or seeking refuge in unworkable, expensive government-run state exchanges.<\/p>\n While many small employers have welcomed a delay in the ACA\u2019s employer mandate until 2015, businesses that already provide insurance are facing Obamacare\u2019s new reality. The bad news has come in waves as companies\u00a0like Home Depot<\/a>\u00a0and Trader Joe\u2019s\u00a0announced they are dropping coverage<\/a>\u00a0for part-time employees. Hundreds of thousands of consumers\u00a0are losing their<\/a>\u00a0\u201cmini-med plans\u201d because they don\u2019t meet Washington\u2019s minimum requirements. Now come the premium increases for self-insured businesses that an analysis by Duke University\u2019s Center for Health Policy\u00a0estimates will cost<\/a>\u00a0an average family $800 a year. In Michigan, for example, insurance costs for the Extreme Chrysler dealership in Jackson are going up 70 percent and Michigan Group Benefits insurance\u00a0says<\/a>\u00a0its clients\u2019 average increase is 23 percent.<\/p>\n The $2,100 cost jump in my Gannett plan, administered by United Health, is actually worse than it appears, as my premiums have already swelled by 45 percent since 2011 as insurers anticipated federal regs forcing, for example, coverage of dependents up to 26 years old. Gannett must also swallow a $63 tax for each individual in its group plan and another $2.13 fee per head to \u201cstudy heath care outcomes.\u201d Similar costs threaten private,\u00a0union-negotiated health plans<\/a>, leading Teamsters President Jimmy Hoffa to say Obamacare will \u201cdestroy the very health and well being of our members.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cHealth care costs historically have been going up 7 percent a year, so anything above that is probably due to provisions in Obamacare,\u201d concludes Drew Gonshorowski, a policy analyst for the Heritage Foundation\u2019s Center for Analysis, who says the ACA\u2019s over-regulation is upsetting important insurance calculations like \u201cage-brand compression\u201d that balances risk pools.<\/p>\n \u201cInsurance pricing is one of the most complicated, difficult-to-price markets,\u201d he says. \u201cThe ACA doesn\u2019t allow insurers to price freely.\u201d<\/p>\n Obamacare promises that its state exchanges offer insurance options,\u00a0but the government-run system is dysfunctional<\/a>. Three weeks after its launch, the federally run Michigan Health Care Exchange is still a nightmare. In the first two weeks I couldn\u2019t sign up because the three security questions wouldn\u2019t load. Last week, the security questions were finally there, but\u00a0then I stalled at the next page<\/a>. After waiting in a chat room, an Obamacare assistant finally responded: \u201cUnfortunately, (high volume) is causing some glitches for some people trying to create accounts, log in, and complete their application. Keep trying and thanks for your patience.\u201d<\/p>\n But if\/when if I do get in, more sticker shock awaits.<\/p>\n An analysis of the feds\u2019 own data by Heritage\u2019s Gonshorowski finds Michigan consumers (as in most states) will experience cost increases across the board. For a family of four, the state exchange will increase costs from $771 to $864 per month. Even for a 27-year old, the youth demographic on which exchanges depend to subsidize older applicants, the exchange increase costs from $117 to $255 per month, a 118 percent hike.<\/p>\n \u201cThe essence of the law is working,\u201d said the president at his Monday news conference. \u201cThe prices are lower than we expected, the choice is greater than we expected.\u201d Do you believe him or your lying eyes?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" President Obama defended his health care reform at the White House on Monday, citing three consumers who he says have benefited from the law. But millions of others are losing their insurance policies, or are seeing premiums balloon. (Chip Somodevilla \/ Getty) Last week I got news that my health insurance costs are going up. 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