President Trump might not mind if people starting calling Obamacare Trumpcare, because the controversial health program signed into law in 2010 is finally stabilizing.
After several years of sharp rate hikes, insurance premiums for people participating in Affordable Care Act exchanges are actually due to fall in 2019. The Trump administration says the average premium for a typical plan will drop by 1.5% next year. That’s based on rates insurance companies must file with the states in which they operate. About 9 million Americans buy insurance on an ACA exchange.
“There’s been a lot of tumult under the ACA up till now,” says Larry Levitt, a senior vice president at the Kaiser Family Foundation. “But there’s no question it’s viable, in the face of significant headwinds. The ACA is embedded in the health care system.”
Insurance still isn’t cheap. The average monthly premium for a mid-level “silver” plan under the ACA will be $406 next year—69% higher than the average premium just three years ago. But steadier rates indicate that insurers have finally figured out how to properly price the policies sold on the exchanges. When the ACA first went into effect in 2014, insurers underpriced their plans. That forced them to impose sharp price hikes in subsequent years. The dramatic price swings might finally be over.
Most ACA participants receive subsidies that protect them from price hikes. But people who earn too much money to qualify for subsidies, and don’t get coverage through an employer, have gotten clobbered with soaring premiums in recent years. A married couple in their 50s can easily pay $25,000 per year in premiums alone. About 6.7 million Americans buy unsubsidized insurance on their own.
[See what Trump gets wrong about “Medicare for all.”]
The stabilization of the ACA is actually an awkward development for Trump, who campaigned to repeal the law and has boasted that “piece by piece, Obamacare is just being wiped out.” Trump has tried to dismantle the ACA by cutting outreach and educational programs and killing reimbursements to insurance companies meant to cover the cost of low-income enrollees. Last year’s Republican-backed tax-cut bill killed the individual mandate requiring everybody to have health care coverage, effective at the start of 2019. That will probably reduce the number of people with coverage under the ACA.
More consumers approve of the ACA
Republicans, of course, came close to overturning the whole law last year—and may try again, if they retain control of Congress after this year’s midterm elections. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell told Reuters recently, “if we had the votes, we’d do it.”