Just How Bad Is It? ObamaCare Premiums In Tennessee Up 36%; Iowa Up 29% -- NY Times -- October 31, 2015

While reading this, remember that nearly half of all non-profit healthcare co-ops created under ObamaCare in 2011 have collapsed due to inadequate Democratic funding. 

There is no possible way to spin this and The New York Times does not:

In Tennessee, the state insurance commissioner approved a 36 percent rate increase for the largest health insurer in the state’s individual marketplace. In Iowa, the commissioner approved rate increases averaging 29 percent for the state’s dominant insurer.

Health insurance consumers logging into HealthCare.gov on Sunday for the first day of the Affordable Care Act’s third open enrollment season may be in for sticker shock, unless they are willing to shop around. Federal officials acknowledged on Friday that many people would need to pick new plans to avoid substantial increases in premiums.

Wow. 36%. 39%.

Those are just the premiums. And what do these premiums get you? $5,000 deductibles.

“It really shocks me to see these plans with $5,000 deductibles,” Belinda Greb, 56, of Vida, OR, said in an interview. “It becomes an area of stress as opposed to making me feel secure.”

Federal subsidies for low- and moderate-income consumers will keep pace with premiums for a benchmark plan, the second-lowest-cost “silver” plan, Mr. Frank said, and consumers who choose that plan can protect themselves and their wallets.

These, of course, would be the policies that provide the least benefits, the least coverage, the highest deductibles. 

But again, the premiums are the least of their problems, and just the start of their problems.

Imagine thinking you have health care insurance and then finding out you have $5,000 of out-of-pocket deductibles before the benefits kick in.  

The GOP is so fortunate it did not defund ObamaCare. 

The article simply gets worse and worse as it goes one:

Ms. Greb said she was too upset to finish a letter she got recently from her insurer, Moda Health, that said her “bronze” health plan, for which she pays $213 a month after a subsidy of $175, would not be offered through the exchange in 2016.

The company offered her a similar plan that would cost $265 a month if her subsidy stays the same.

The new plan recommended by Moda has a deductible, the amount she must pay for care before the insurance begins to pay, of $5,500, up from $4,250 in her current plan, she said. “People are putting off care because of the expense.”

And insurers are dropping out resulting in less competition, higher premiums and higher deductibles:

But, an administration report said Friday, only one insurer is offering coverage in the marketplace in Wyoming, and consumers have a choice of just two insurers in Alaska, Hawaii, Oklahoma, South Dakota and West Virginia. And that data, current as of Oct. 19, did not reflect the recent collapse of nonprofit insurance cooperatives in South Carolina and Utah.

And this is from The New York Times.

Nearly half of all non-profit healthcare co-ops created under ObamaCare in 2011 have collapsed due to inadequate Democratic funding.