Now that President Obama and the Democratic Congress have effectively nationalized the regulation and subsidy of health insurance, they are going to have to live or perish with the consequences. For example every hike in premiums will stick to them. The process has already started, as you can see in this Las Vegas Review-Journal story:

Many of the law’s sweeping changes will not take place for months or even years and have not been defined by federal regulations. Insurance companies have not yet submitted any new rates for approval by the Nevada Division of Insurance, an agency representative said, and may not until autumn. Most plans renew annually on Jan. 1. But local brokers report instances of small groups or individual coverages where premiums have risen in percentages from the mid-teens to the mid-20s, double or more than the average in recent years. “We are seeing rate increases right now,” independent broker Larry Harrison said. “I think there’s definitely going to be more increases because of the mandates.” I can personally attest to the uncertainties created by the new law. The company that handles the John Locke Foundation’s employee benefits still can’t tell me whether our health plan, based around health savings and health reimbursement accounts, will be legal under the new law, what kinds of future changes would invalidate its grandfathering protection, and what the company will do in the future if there is a significant risk of having its products so bound up in red tape that marketing them to new customers will become at least prohibitively costly, if not illegal. Other insurers in my market are responding to Obamacare by shedding employees, selling real estate, and achieving other savings now in an attempt to build up reserves in case they can’t raise rates enough to keep their plans solvent in the coming years. That might help in the short run but it gives me little confidence about long-run viability. Will I and millions of other Americans be allowed to keep our health plans intact, as the president promised? Seems doubtful. And premiums are skyrocketing. Thanks a lot.