DSCC Statement on GOP Triggering “Double-Digit Premium Increases”

Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee spokesman David Bergstein issued the following statement on a new report on Republican-driven rate hikes:

“Americans will pay more for less health care next year because the President and Republicans in Congress put their own interests ahead of their constituents. If they were serious about making health care more affordable, they would work across the aisle to strengthen markets and eliminate the uncertainty that’s driving up costs. Republicans running for Senate own these expensive rate hikes, which will impact voters as they prepare to go to the polls next fall.”

Associated Press: Study: Trump actions trigger health premium hikes for 2018
By Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar
August 10, 2017

Key Points:

• “The Trump administration’s own actions are triggering double-digit premium increases on individual health insurance policies purchased by many consumers, a nonpartisan study has found.”
• “The analysis released Thursday by the Kaiser Family Foundation found that mixed signals from President Donald Trump have created uncertainty “far outside the norm,” leading insurers to seek higher premium increases for 2018 than would otherwise have been the case.”
• “About 10 million people who buy policies through HealthCare.gov and state-run markets are potentially affected, as well as another 5 million to 7 million who purchase individual policies on their own.”
• “‘The vast majority of companies in states with detailed rate filings have included some language around the uncertainty, so it is likely that more companies will revise their premiums to reflect uncertainty in the absence of clear answers from Congress or the administration,’ the report said. Once premiums are set, they’re generally in place for a whole year.”
• “Insurers who assumed that Trump will make good on his threat to stop billions in payments to subsidize copays and deductibles requested additional premium increases ranging from 2 percent to 23 percent, the report found.”
• “‘In many cases that means insurers are adding double-digit premium increases on top of what they otherwise would have requested,’ said Cynthia Cox, a co-author of the Kaiser report. ‘In many cases, what we are seeing is an additional increase due to the political uncertainty.’”

Read the full article here.

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