By: Julie Crawshaw
Dec. 22, 2009

The best and most rigorous Obamacare cost analysis was recently released by the insurer Well Point, which mined its actuarial data in various regional markets to model the Senate bill, The Wall Street Journal reports.

Well Point found that the increases are solely the result of ObamaCare because its strict restrictions on underwriting and risk-pooling would distort insurance markets, causing benefits and pricing to be determined by politics — findings that support the Congressional Budget Office’s statement that the Senate bill would so “substantially reduce flexibility in terms of the types, prices, and number of private sellers of health insurance” that companies like Well Point might need to “be considered part of the federal budget.”

Some examples of what to expect: A healthy 25-year-old in Milwaukee buying coverage on the individual market will see his costs rise by 178 percent.

A small business based in Richmond with eight employees in average health will see a 23 percent increase.

Insurance costs for a 40-year-old family with two kids living in Indianapolis will rise 106 percent.

“Despite a majority of Americans saying ‘no’ to this $2.5 trillion bill, Democrats continue to force it through Congress,” Senator Roger Wicker told the press.

“This enormous government expansion plan would increase taxes, slash Medicare by nearly half a trillion dollars, raise the cost of health care, and cripple already cash-strapped states through its unfunded Medicaid expansion.”

“Higher taxes, more spending, and cuts to Medicare are not the reforms Americans want. This bill is a colossal mistake,” Wicker says.

“It should be scrapped so that we can start over and get this right.”

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Source: Money News

 

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