Data: Cost of many health insurances to rise about 10% this year
In 2021, the American Rescue Plan expanded the amount of people who could get a subsidy under the Affordable Care Act, reducing the cost of insurance for millions on the marketplace. Those subsidies are set to expire at the end of this year.
LA CROSSE (WKBT) — According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, the price of health insurances in more than a dozen states is expected to surge about 10% this year.
Rick Teska, the CEO of Strive Medicare in La Crosse, has worked as a health insurance advisor for 39 years. He said that any surge in the price of health insurances at this time cannot be blamed one one issue in particular, but did say America’s aging population could be a factor.
“There’s 10,000 people turning 65 a day so that’s a huge amount of people that are aging,” Teska said.
Teska added that the higher cost of medical technology, the fact that more people are unhealthy and a higher volume of pandemic-era hospital stays could be contributing to higher health insurance prices.
“All of those things compounded together, are going to drive up costs,” he said.
More than 14 million Americans get their health insurance through the Affordable Care Act. In 2021, the American Rescue Plan expanded the amount of people who could get a subsidy under the ACA, reducing the cost of insurance for millions of people. Those subsidies are set to expire in 2023.
President Biden’s Build Back Better spending bill calls for funding to maintain current subsidy levels, which would cost approximately $22 billion per year.
Still, Teska feels that instead of larger pandemic-era subsidies, the government should have helped Obamacare recipients pay their deductibles during the worst of Covid-19.
Still, on the issue of Medicare, Teska said he’s seeing the highest increases in monthly premium costs ever at this time, with prices in one income cohort going from $148.50 per month to more than $170. This is an increase of almost 15 percent.
“That’s the biggest monthly increase that Medicare has taken historically,” he said.
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