The Colorado Division of Insurance is not comprehensively tracking the change in health insurance premiums as customers decide whether to move to policies compliant with the Affordable Care Act, according to the Denver Post.
That means the state has no way of knowing how much Obamacare is costing the average customer.
The division has tracked the cost paid by some of the 335,000 policyholders whose plans were cancelled last year but offered the chance to renew through 2014. In some cases, the Post reported, there was no premium increase, but others increased as high as 15.5 percent.
The paper reported that before Obamacare, the average five-year annual increase for individual plans was 12.2 percent and 11.5 percent for small-group plans.
Most of those who chose to renew existing plans will have to pick a new ACA-compliant plan next year, although just last week, President Obama further extended the time people can keep some policies by another two years.
“It’s unclear what the premium changes will be for ACA-compliant policies,” the Post reported.
For some people it’s clear they will pay more per month than they pay now. The Denver Post reported on the experience of Julie Dagnillo, who will pay about $100 more per month under an Obamacare-compliant policy purchased on Colorado’s healthcare exchange. A plan for her daughter will also cost about $110 more per month, after the renewal on her daughter’s old policy runs out.
“I’m completely outraged,” Dagnillo told the Post. “We’re the ones suffering the brunt for the entire nation. They’re going to put us into poverty.”
A spokesman for Democratic Sen. Mark Udall — who pushed back against the Division of Insurance’s cancelation numbers, arguing that they are misleading because most people were offered renewals — told the Post Udall would be “supportive” of the state tracking costs.
“Such a move would ensure consumers and policymakers would have a complete picture,” spokesman Mike Saccone wrote in an email to the Denver paper.
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