Republicans say the average family health insurance premium has increased by $4,154 under President Obama. That’s right — and it’s a much slower rate of growth than under President George W. Bush.
Slower Premium Growth Under Obama
Issues: premiums
‘Skyrocketing’ Premiums
Several ads make the misleading claim that premiums and health care costs are “skyrocketing” under the Affordable Care Act. Overall, both are growing at historically low rates. Some who buy their own insurance will pay more, but others will pay less.
Spinning Premium Rates
Both sides in the great Obamacare debate are distorting the facts about premium rates on the soon-to-open health exchanges to make their case for or against the law.
Obama’s Premium Promise
On Connecticut Public Broadcasting, Managing Editor Lori Robertson fact-checks President Obama’s claim that all of the currently uninsured would be able to get insurance on the exchanges “at a significantly cheaper rate” than what they can get now on the individual market, without federal subsidies. Even Kathleen Sebelius, secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, has acknowledged younger Americans would likely pay more.
For more on Obama’s statement, see our Aug. 13 post, “Obama Overpromises on Premiums.”
Obama Overpromises on Premiums
President Obama claimed that all of the currently uninsured would be able to get coverage on the exchanges “at a significantly cheaper rate than what they can get right now on the individual market” even without federal tax credits.
Health Insurance Premium Spin
A new analysis on the Affordable Care Act prompts Republicans and the White House to trade misleading claims about the law’s impact on insurance premiums. Predictably, one side says they’ll go up; the other says they’ll go down. But both are stretching the facts, just as they’ve been doing since 2010, before the law was even enacted.
‘Obamacare’ to cost $20,000 a Family?
Q: Did the IRS say that the cheapest health insurance plan under the federal health care law would cost $20,000 per family?
A: No. The IRS used $20,000 in a hypothetical example to illustrate how it will calculate the tax penalty for a family that fails to obtain health coverage as required by law. Treasury says the figure “is not an estimate of premiums.”
Premium Hype
Both Republicans and the Obama administration have pushed misleading claims on what impact the federal health care law has on insurance premiums.
For more on this issue, see “Misleading on Premiums” from March 26.
Misleading on Premiums
Both the Republican National Committee and the Obama administration are making misleading claims about health insurance premium costs. An RNC ad falsely implies that the federal health care law is responsible for all of the $1,300 average increase in family coverage premiums last year. But at the same time, the Obama administration makes the misleading claim that families “could save up to $2,300” on health care costs per year in the future by buying insurance through exchanges called for by the law.
FactChecking Health Insurance Premiums
Health insurance premiums for employer-sponsored family plans jumped a startling 9 percent from 2010 to 2011, and Republicans have blamed the federal health care law. But they exaggerate. The law — the bulk of which has yet to be implemented — has caused only about a 1 percent …