Embarrassingly, the cost of ObamaCare’s lowest-priced healthcare program are “unaffordable” by the Affordable Care Act’s own definition, and this will be the case in 47 out of 50 Obamacare marketplaces by 2018.
Under the Affordable Care Act, health insurance will become unaffordable when the lowest-cost program would cost more than 8.16% of the household’s total income. In a recent study, eHealth explains, “Government subsidies are available to people earning up to 400% of the federal poverty level, but middle-income households earning 401% or more of the federal poverty level are not eligible for subsidy assistance.”
In their study, families with two adults and one child in 50 key marketpalces, who were paying the lowest-price plan in 2017 were evaluated. The study applied a 10% increase to all the premiums to project all the rates seen in 2018 and concluded that in almost 47 of these cities the coverage of this plan would become unaffordable. The increase in the study is a moderate approximation, since it is speculated that the increase on the premiums could spike as much as 20% by 2018.
In addition to this, these families would incur an extra $28,939 in expenses before the plan became affordable. On average, such families with three members would need to earn a six-figure salary – or $110,823.32 to be precise – to pay for the coverage, or for the coverage to be considered “affordable”.
Some cities have higher still costs than others, for instance, in Charlotte, N.C. a family of three would have to earn an approximation of extra $102,244.68 from what they are earning right now, or a precise estimated amount of $184,128.68 per year to afford the ObamaCare plan.
The only three cities, where there was no affordability gap with the expected increase in the rates in 2018 are Detroit, Albuquerque and Pittsburgh.
eHealth CEO Scott Flanders summarized his organization’s findings, declaring, “Coverage under the Affordable Care Act is becoming seriously unaffordable for many families, even by Obamacare’s own rules. I find it hard to believe that the framers of the law ever intended the cost of family health insurance to rival that of a second mortgage. Without the introduction of lower-cost options into the market or expanded government subsidies, many middle-income Americans are in danger of being priced out of the health insurance market entirely.”