Two large health insurance market makers say customers who haveto pay the full cost of their individual major medical coverage themselvesare facing big increases in premium bills for 2018coverage.
|For consumers who qualify to use Affordable Care Act advancepremium tax credits, however, average increasesin out-of-pocket spending may be under 10 percent.
|The data
Analysts at eHealth Inc., the for-profit company thatruns the eHealthInsurance.com insurance sales website, haspublished one batch of data, based on unsubsidized individual majormedical purchases made from Nov. 1 through Nov. 20.
|Analysts at Connect for Health Colorado, the state-basedAffordable Care Act public health insurance exchange in Colorado,has based its data on its sales of subsidized and unsubsidized individualmajor medical sales for the period from Nov. 1 through Nov.21.
|The for-profit web broker
At eHealth, which does business throughout the United States,the cost of unsubsidized, bare-bones, bronze-level 2018 coverage isaveraging $452 per month, up 21 percent from the average monthlyprice for 2017 coverage.
|The average monthly cost of mid-level silver plans has increased23 percent, to $514, and the average monthly cost of gold plans hasincreased 22 percent, to $613.
|The ACA exchange
In Colorado, at Connect for Health Colorado, the average cost ofunsubsidized coverage at all richness levels has increased 37percent, year over year, to $571 per month.
|For Colorado residents who qualify for the Affordable CareAct advance premium tax credit subsidy, the full cost ofcoverage has increased 30 percent, to $758 per month.
|But, for Colorado residents who qualify for the premiumsubsidies, the subsidies have also increased.
|Because of the increase in the average subsidy level, the netamount the subsidy users are paying out of pocket for coverage hasincreased just 6.8 percent, to $157 per month.
|About 63 percent of Connect for Health Colorado's earlyapplications appear to be coming in through brokers.
|Another 7 percent are coming in from nonprofit helpers, or frompeople who have received help both from brokers and from nonprofithelpers.
|The rest of the purchasers are signing up for coverage entirelyon their own, without help from brokers or nonprofit helpers.
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Allison Bell
Allison Bell, ThinkAdvisor's insurance editor, previously was LifeHealthPro's health insurance editor. She has a bachelor's degree in economics from Washington University in St. Louis and a master's degree in journalism from the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University. She can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter at @Think_Allison.
