The Affordable Care Act is ironically making health insurance less affordable, according to a new analysis of premiums for individual plans.
According to a 49-state analysis (not including Hawaii due to an inability to access data) conducted by the Manhattan Institute, the average state will see premiums increase for people purchasing plans on the individual market by 41 percent.
Avik Roy, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute writing at his Forbes blog The Apothecary, laid out the findings Tuesday, revealing that the greatest hikes in premiums will land squarely on the backs of healthy, young, males.
Twenty-seven-year-old men in the average state will see a premium increase of 77 percent, men age 40 will see a 37 percent increase and 64-year-old men will see a 47 percent premium increase.
The report explains that women will also experience rate increases but to a lesser extent, 18 percent for 27 year-olds, 28 percent for 40 year-olds, and 37 percent for 64 year olds.
According to Roy’s report, 41 states and the District of Columbia will see average premium hikes, and eight states will see reductions. The eight states with premium reductions are: New York (40 percent), Colorado (22 percent), Ohio (21 percent), Massachusetts (20 percent), New Jersey (19 percent), New Hampshire (18 percent), Rhode Island (10 percent) and Indiana (3 percent).
“Most, but not all, of these states had heavily-regulated individual insurance markets prior to Obamacare, and will therefore benefit from Obamacare’s subsidies, and especially its requirement that everyone purchase health insurance or pay a fine,” Roy explains.
The eight states with the greatest increases include Nevada (179 percent), New Mexico (142 percent), Arkansas (138 percent), North Carolina (136 percent), Vermont (117 percent), Georgia (92 percent), South Dakota (77 percent) and Nebraska (74 percent).
Roy and his Manhattan Institute colleagues, Yevgeniy Feyman and Paul Howard, also developed an interactive map displaying how much Obamacare will cost people in each of he 49 states and D.C. they analyzed.
