As ObamaCare’s next open enrollment period draws near, some of the controversial law’s biggest backers are cheering a seven city survey claiming that health insurance premiums associated with it are dropping.
This leads liberal health policy expert Ezra Klein of Vox to say that “Obama’s signature accomplishment is succeeding beyond all reasonable expectation.”
But not if you get your health insurance from your employer, however.
“Employees are on the hook for more and more of their health care costs. Premiums are increasing so slowly in part because employers are continuing to shift toward higher deductibles, requiring employees to pay more out of their own pockets before their health care plans kick in,” explains Sam Baker in National Journal.
Comparing monthly premium rates year-to-year makes sense if that’s the best single indicator of how ObamaCare is impacting paychecks. But it isn’t. For employees working in the real economy the shift to high deductible plans means more out-of-pocket spending every time they visit the doctor.
Translation: ObamaCare makes health insurance for workers more expensive.
When it comes to measuring ObamaCare’s success, we need to make sure we’re looking at the most relevant data. Otherwise, we risk scoring political points at the expense of the truth.
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