Laszewski on ObamaCare: ‘Get Ready for Some Startling Rate Increases’

The invaluable Robert Laszweski:

The Affordable Care Act: Ten Months to Launch "Obamacare"––Get Ready for Some Startling Rate Increases

[...]

I conducted an informal survey of a number of insurers...None of the people I talked to are academics or work for a think tank. None of them are in the spin business inside the Beltway. Every one of them has the responsibility for coming up with the correct rates their companies will have to charge...

On average, expect a 30% to 40% increase in the baseline cost of individual health insurance to account for the new premium taxes, reinsurance costs, benefit mandate increases, and underwriting reforms...

In states with the least mandates or for health insurance companies with the tightest underwriting now, the increase could be a lot more...

[E]xpect individual health insurance rates for people in their 20s and early 30s to about double...

Will the feds be ready to provide an insurance exchange in all of the states that don't have one on October 1, 2013?

I have no idea. And neither does anyone else I talk to inside the Beltway. We only hear vague reports that parts of the new federal exchange information systems are in testing.

The former CIA director couldn't get away with an affair in this town but the Obama administration has a complete lid on just where they are on health insurance exchanges and haven't shown any willingness to want to talk about their progress toward launching on time––except to tell us all not to worry.

We are all worried. I would not want to be responsible for the work that remains and only have ten months to do it...

The Republicans said this would not work. If it does not launch on time, or does with serious problems, I would not want to be an incumbent Democrat.

I told them not to call this the "Affordable Care Act."