Health Insurance Premiums Continue to Rise Under RomneyCare
Not only are Masachusetts' health insurance premiums higher than elsewhere in the U.S. on average, they've grown at a faster rate since the adoption of RomneyCare, according to a report released yesterday by the state government. The report, which was published by the state's Division of Health Care Finance & Policy, notes that for the last two years, private group insurance premiums rose by between five and 10 percent per year despite the fact that the regional consumer price index, which measures inflation on common goods and services, rose by just two percent.
This is hardly a surprise for those who've been following along: The RAND Corporation recently found that "in the absence of policy change, health care spending in Massachusetts is projected to increase about 8 percent faster than the state's GDP over the next decade." In 2009, the state's family insurance premiums were honored as the most expensive in the country. And last year, economists at Stanford and Columbia University recently found that RomneyCare "increased single-coverage employer-sponsored insurance premiums by about 6 percent in aggregate, and by about 7 percent for firms with fewer than 50 employees." The Obama administration has explicitly stated on numerous occasions that RomneyCare was the model for the federal overhaul. Given the Bay State's spiraling costs, it seems more and more likely that, thanks to ObamaCare, we can all expect higher health insurance premiums in our future.
