ObamaCare costs go down

ObamaCare got some good news from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office on Monday, which projected that the law’s price tag will be lower than previously thought. 

The budget scorekeeper said that health insurance premiums will be lower, so the cost of helping people afford coverage has gone down. The lower prices are part of a broader slowdown in the rise of health costs that is encouraging to supporters of the law. 

Fewer people will also lose employer-provided health insurance than previously thought, which is welcome news for the administration given Republican attacks over people’s plans being canceled. 

{mosads}“It’s still a very controversial law but the fact that it is costing the federal government less than expected is no doubt heartening to its advocates, and I think it bolsters the case that [the law] is helping reduce the deficit,” said Larry Levitt, senior vice president at the Kaiser Family Foundation, a health policy non-profit group. 

The CBO report comes on the same day that Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Mathews Burwell announced that 11.7 million people had signed up for private insurance through ObamaCare up to Feb. 22. 

She used the number to argue the law is succeeding, although it faces a major threat from the Supreme Court in the case of King v. Burwell, which could strike down subsidies for around 7.5 million people in roughly three dozen states.

The CBO projects that ObamaCare will cost 11 percent, or $142 billion, less over the next ten years than it thought in its projection in January. 

On one of the central aspects of the law, giving people subsidies to help them buy private insurance, costs are now projected to be 20 percent, or $209 billion, lower over ten years. 

The law’s declining price tag is even more dramatic when viewed against earlier projections. In March 2010, when ObamaCare was signed into law, the CBO projected costs to be approaching $200 billion per year by 2019. Now, the trend line is flatter, and costs are expected to hover around $120 billion per year. 

It remains a matter of debate how much this slower rise in health costs is due to ObamaCare. The CBO says it is “unclear” how much is due to the effects of the recession and how much is due to other factors. 

“There’s some debate about how much the Affordable Care Act is helping to slow health spending, but there’s no doubt the slowdown in health spending helps the Affordable Care Act,” Levitt said. 

While the main reason for the law’s lower cost is the slowdown in health spending, the CBO also says some is due to slightly fewer people signing up. 

The CBO now projects 22 million people will have signed up through ObamaCare’s marketplaces in 2025, two million fewer than previously thought.

Fewer people will sign up because new data shows that more people than previously thought already had health insurance before the law, and because fewer people are losing employer-provided coverage. 

In defending ObamaCare against the lawsuit in the Supreme Court on Monday, Burwell pointed to progress that has been made on multiple fronts. 

“Those who support this lawsuit believe that the law should dismantled or repealed and they are content to roll back the progress that we have achieved together,” she said.