Will young adults face 'rate shock' because of the health-care law?
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The law will require insurers to offer a generous package of benefits for exchange plans, including coverage of maternity care, prescription drugs and treatment for mental illness. It also caps customers' out-of-pocket expenses.
Many 20-somethings who buy their own insurance have plans that are considerably skimpier. So, under the new rule, they will be getting and paying for more, whether they want the added coverage or not.
Another key driver of higher prices: Insurers will no longer be able to turn away or charge more to people with preexisting conditions. Perhaps most significantly, insurers will be allowed to charge their oldest customers only three times as much as their youngest. In most states, older customers are paying at least five times as much.
The result: Older, sicker people will pay lower premiums. Younger, healthier people will pay higher ones to make up the difference. The price of a policy for a young, healthy man in, for instance, Milwaukee, could triple from $58 per month to $175, according to a survey of insurers released by Douglas Holtz-Eakin, president of the American Action Forum, a center-right think tank, and a former director of the Congressional Budget Office.
Voters under the age of 40 were the key to Obama's election in 2008 and in 2012. This is exactly the group for which the costs Obama's redistributive agenda will be the steepest. They don't call young people today the "Screwed Generation" for nothing. http://www.thedailybeast.com/n...
By the way, labor unions who backed the 2010 law are also looking none too happy about the impacts of Obamacare either. http://online.wsj.com/article/...
