Costello OpEd: Economy, Businesses, Families, State Suffer Under ObamaCare Costs
Oklahoma labor commissioner: Who takes a HIT from Affordable Care Act?
BY MARK COSTELLO
One of the most complicated challenges facing Oklahoma families and businesses continues to be compliance with the Affordable Care Act.
Untrue to its namesake, the ACA isn’t making health care more affordable by bending “the cost curve down” as President Obama once promised. In fact, health care premiums are increasing across the country. Consumer health care spending exploded by nearly 10 percent in the first quarter of 2014, the highest rate of growth in more than 30 years, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis.
Why are costs rising? First, when government taxes more of a particular product, costs increase. Health insurance is no different. The ACA contains a new tax costing health insurance companies $8 billion this year alone and is projected to cost more than $100 billion over the next 10 years. But it doesn’t stop there. The Health Insurance Tax (HIT) will increase nearly 50 percent next year alone, reaching more than $14 billion annually in 2018. It will increase with insurance premium growth thereafter.
Because fewer young and healthy individuals have “enrolled” for coverage on the exchanges than the unhealthy, the risk pools across the country will be prone to premium increases in the foreseeable future. HIT is projected by the Congressional Joint Committee on Taxation to add an outrageous $400 annually to family health care premiums by 2016. The National Federation of Independent Business says HIT will increase family premiums by $5,000 by 2022.