The crew at InsureBlog — Henry Stern, William Halper, Mike Feehan, and Bob Vineyard — consistently unearth interesting nuggets about the world of health care, and in particular the impact of Obamacare on health insurance. Here are some of the more interesting recent ones:
In New Jersey, the new PPACA-designed high-risk pool, intended to provide health coverage to everyone in New Jersey who can’t get insurance due to a preexisting condition, has enrolled two people. Part of the reason is that the PPACA-designed plans aren’t very attractive.
As in Canada and Europe, wealthy Americans are starting to use their political connections to gain access to treatments that ordinary people can’t.
Under Obamacare, a family of four, with a $93,000 annual income and a parental age of 50, with no employer health coverage, gets a government subsidy of $8,023. The same family with a $94,000 annual income gets a government subsidy of zero.
Covering psychiatric illnesses just as other illnesses are covered, as PPACA requires, is likely to drive insurance premiums up by 25 percent or more.
– Avik Roy is an equity research analyst at Monness, Crespi, Hardt & Co., and blogs on health-care policy at The Apothecary.