'Get the Insurance Companies the Hell Out' of Healthcare System

Right-wingers like Charles Krauthammer don’t “think anybody should buy it”—and too many Democrats actually don’t want to talk about it—but that doesn’t mean advocates for a single-payer or ‘Medicare for All’ healthcare system aren’t responding to news about rising insurance premiums for the Affordable Care Act (ACA) with renewed demands.

Just weeks away from national elections, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) made financial and political news late Monday by announcing the average premiums for plans under the ACA (aka Obamacare) will rise significantly for many consumers in 2017.

“There is only one permanent fix—stepping up work for enactment of a humane health care system based on patient need not private profits that guarantees universal health care for all through an expanded and updated Medicare for All—the same approach that works in virtually every other country on earth.”
—Jean Ross, National Nurses United

And while Republicans predictably seized on the development as an easy opportunity to again use Obamacare as an electoral cudgel, backers of the legislation—including many Democrats who voted for it—were left trying to defend a healthcare system that has enriched (and emboldened) the private health industry since its passage in 2010. Though progressives have been able to champion specific positive impacts of the law—including Medicaid expansion, the use of pre-existing conditions to prohibit coverage, and expanding the number of insured people—there remain significant shortcomings that critics say cannot be ignored. 

According to Jean Ross, co-president of the National Nurses United, which has longed organized for a single-payer system, the premium increases announced Monday are “outrageous” and just the most recent “sign of a broken, dysfunctional healthcare system.”

In its report on Monday, HHS explained that for consumers who have Obamacare mid-level plans purchased on the federal exchange, premiums will increase an average of 25 percent next year. While some states will see larger increases, others will be less than that. And while the Obama administration pointed out that many people who use these plans receive government subsidies to pay for them, the Associated Press reports how an “estimated 5 million to 7 million people are either not eligible for the income-based assistance, or they buy individual policies outside of the health law’s markets, where the subsidies are not available.”

Additionally, as some major insurers have withdrawn from the federal exchange, as well as certain state-level exchanges, AP notes that about 1 in 5 consumers will only have plans from a single insurer to pick from during the 3-month enrollment period which begins on November 1.

Despite those numbers, HHS Secretary Sylvia Burwell said that 72 percent of those enrolled in an Obamacare plan should be able to find a plan with a premium of less than $75 per month. “Our nation has made historic progress under the ACA,” Burwell said in a statement, “and now we want to build on that progress to further improve affordability, access, and quality.”