Playing With The Numbers On Obamacare

by Stuart Shapiro

Republicans hate Obamacare.  They’ve voted to repeal all or parts of it in the House of Representatives 38 times with no hope of success. They want it to fail.  So when a state governed by Republicans comes out with numbers saying insurance costs are going up, you need to be skeptical.  Case in point: Indiana.

Yesterday brought yet another wheeze as the state of Indiana released the projected cost of insurance on its Obamacare exchanges. The usual standard of comparison is for silver-level plans, but Indiana didn’t release that separately because then it would have been clear that Indiana’s costs were about the same as everyone else’s. Instead they munged together the bronze, silver, gold, and platinum plans in some unspecificed way, and did it for no apparent reason except that it allowed them to trumpet a supposed 72 percent increase in the cost of health insurance.

That’s like saying my Mercedes this year costs more than the Toyota I bought last year so car costs are going up.

By: Stuart Shapiro

Stuart is a professor and the Director of the Public Policy
program at the Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy at Rutgers
University. He teaches economics and cost-benefit analysis and studies
regulation in the United States at both the federal and state levels.
Prior to coming to Rutgers, Stuart worked for five years at the Office
of Management and Budget in Washington under Presidents Clinton and
George W. Bush.