Our 2023 individual market ACA “Bronze” insurance policy premium will be $1,924 per month with a $17,400 annual deductible for two adults[1].
This means $23,000 per year, plus up to $17,400 for actual health care or about $40,000 per year before primary benefits kick in.
Due to recent legislation, there may be a temporary subsidy available for some in the individual market. Democrats realized their ACA goal of making health insurance in the individual market affordable was a failure. But rather than fix the defects in the ACA, they offer a sliding scale subsidy to partially cover monthly premiums.
Many Democrats have acknowledged their ACA failed to control prices – in fact, made them much higher. This is because it turned the small individual market into a high-risk insurance pool with high premiums. Those who originally got subsidies see their premiums hold steady at near their original 2014 prices. But others today pay thousands of dollars per month for catastrophic insurance coverage with massively high deductibles, a far worse situation than what these individuals had pre-ACA.
Pre-ACA, 35 states ran their own “high risk” insurance programs. Post ACA, these patients were moved to the ACA market, causing ACA premiums to skyrocket. Similarly, pre-ACA, an estimated 27% of the uninsured had pre-existing conditions. Many ended up in the tiny individual market pool. Since 2017, the costs of these high-risk / high-cost patients are shared only with members of the individual market, hence, skyrocketing premiums.
The individual market pools are too small to affordably absorb these high risks. Jonathan Gruber of MIT projected that by today, the ACA market pools would be 2x to 3x larger than they are. Most everything he did, was wrong – his ACA design was flawed but he was far too politicized and arrogant to acknowledge his failure – he was recorded saying, at a meeting, that “we” had to use obfuscating language to get this past the “stupid American voter” because that is how the technocratic elite view everyone else.
We went from $600 for 3 adults (for a Silver like policy) to $1924 dollars for 2 adults, with the deductible rising from $1,500 to $17,400 – at which point, the ACA is an extraordinarily expensive “catastrophic only” health insurance policy.
Would you have voted for the ACA if honestly told that in 8 years, your monthly premium would triple or quadruple, your deductible would increase by a factor 10x or more, and their program would offer a catastrophic only coverage plan for 2 adults with $17,400 deductible for $2,000/month?
