WSJ:
Blue Cross & Blue Shield of Illinois wants a 27% hike, while its sister Blue Cross plan in Texas is asking for 21%. The largest ACA plans in Washington state, Georgia and Rhode Island are all looking for premiums to surge more than 20%.
Most of the 24 million people in Affordable Care Act health plans face a potential one-two punch next year — double-digit premium increases along with a sharp drop in the federal subsidies that most consumers depend on to buy the coverage, also known as Obamacare.
Health care in America is insanely expensive, unpredictable, and often low quality. And yet it’s going to get far pricier next year, largely because a network of monopolistic middlemen are pushing up costs.
Despite decades of popular anger, we just can’t seem to do anything about health care costs and the people who foist them on us.
This will cut heavily into disposable income of the middle class lowering they ability to consume and drive the economy upward.