My colleagues here at The Apothecary have written extensively about the recent large increases in Obamacare premiums and deductibles, as have others — even though prices for actual health care services are rising at the slowest rate in six decades. It is now well-established that many people buying health coverage through the ACA exchanges have to pay tens of thousands of dollars – counting both premiums and deductibles – before receiving a single dollar of coverage for treatment of any illness. And even with these high premiums and deductibles, insurance companies are still losing money. All but one of the nonprofits established under the ACA’s CO-OP program lost money in their first year, and half the CO-OPs have already shut down or will do so at the end of this year, and UnitedHealth announced that they are losing money in ACA markets and are considering dropping out entirely after 2016.
The question we need to ask is, Why?
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