{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["http://www.speaker.gov/general/how-obamacare-getting-worse", "How Obamacare Is Getting Worse", "2016-12-19", "2016", "2016-12", "Republican", "House", "WI", "Paul Ryan", "R000570", "www.speaker.gov", null, null, "legacy", "Obamacare has\u00a0failed the American people, and things are only getting worse by the day:\n \n\tEven higher premiums.\u00a0People who have signed up for the benchmark Obamacare plan will pay, on average,\u00a025 percent\u00a0more in premiums next year. That is more than three times the increase for 2016. On top of all that, the quality of the coverage is\u00a0worse than expected. Americans are, in effect, paying more for less than what they were promised.\n\tEven higher deductibles.\u00a0On one of the least expensive types of plans, deductibles for both individuals and families are going up by about\u00a015 percent. Deductibles have gotten so high that it is essentially the equivalent of not even having health insurance.\n\tAn even bigger bill for taxpayers.\u00a0Because premiums have skyrocketed so much, so have the subsidies needed to prop up Obamacare. According to one independent study, taxpayers will pay\u00a0nearly $10 billion more\u00a0for subsidies in 2017.\n\tEven fewer choices.\u00a0For 2016, only 2 percent of eligible customers had one insurer to choose from. For next year, that number has jumped to\u00a017 percent.\u00a0\n \nAll of these trends are heading in the wrong direction. The trajectory we are on points to the\u00a0likely possibility that Obamacare is already in what experts call a\u00a0\u201cdeath spiral,\u201d where there is such little competition that costs skyrocket and the market collapses.\u00a0Here's what Doug Badger of the Galen Institute\u00a0wrote\u00a0earlier this month:\n\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t \n\t\t\t\t\t\t\u201cObamacare already is in a death spiral that is fast approaching its terminal point.\u00a0That is because, despite billions in individual and corporate subsidies, insurers are bleeding money. \u2026 And 2015 will be remembered as Obamacare\u2019s good old days. Since then, four of the country\u2019s five largest insurers \u2014 Aetna, Humana, Cigna and UnitedHealthcare \u2014 have all but abandoned the exchanges. The fifth,\u00a0Anthem, saw its stock price spike upwards last month minutes after its CEO told investors that his company might pull out in 2018.\u00a0...\u00a0The insurer exodus has left more than\u00a0one in five Americans\u00a0with an exchange in which only one company participates. The consequences of dumping all the bad risks onto a single insurer are entirely predictable \u2014 that insurer will drop out of the market, leaving no insurers in the exchange.\u00a0The program\u2019s death spiral is irreversible.\u201d\n\t\t\t\t\t \n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\n\n\n\tThe very real possibility of a death spiral picked up last spring, when insurers warned that their losses from Obamacare were\u00a0\u201cunsustainable.\u201d\u00a0The Hill\u00a0reported on April 15:\n\t \n\t\t\u201cInsurers say they are losing money on their ObamaCare plans at a rapid rate, and some have begun to talk about dropping out of the marketplaces altogether. \u2026 While analysts expect the market to stabilize once premiums rise and more young, healthy people sign up,\u00a0some observers have not ruled out the possibility of a collapse of the market, known in insurance parlance as a \u2018death spiral.\u2019\u201d\n\t \n\tSure enough, as the summer unfolded and premium increases piled up, the death spiral began to take shape:\n\t \n\t\t\u201cObamacare ripples through Texas as health insurers propose steep rate hikes.\u00a0\u2026 \u2018The individual market is a market of last resort ... And that's not how it used to be,\u2019 said Janna Hamstra, a benefits consultant in San Antonio whose firm, Hamstra Benefit Solutions, advises employers across Texas. \u2018In our industry, they call it the death spiral\u00a0... As those premiums keep escalating, healthier individuals decide to self insure,\u2019 she said.\u201d (Houston Chronicle)\n\t\t\u201c[Princeton University health economist Uwe Reinhardt] offers an especially thoughtful explanation of why he believes the Obamacare marketplaces won\u2019t work. \u2018Liberals think this will settle itself.\u00a0Eventually, though,\u00a0we all know about the death spiral that actuaries worry about, and I think what you\u2019re seeing now is a mild version of that.\u00a0These things accelerate, as premiums keep rising.\u2019\u201d (Vox)\n\t\t\u201c\u2018I think what we should be expecting is premiums that are substantially higher, and I\u00a0think there\u2019s a real risk that other insurers pull out,\u2019 \u00a0said Michael Morrisey, a professor at the Texas A&M University School of Public Health.\u00a0\u2018We may be beginning to see the death spiral\u00a0of insurance plans in the exchanges.\u2019\u201d\u00a0(Texas Tribune)\n\t\t\u201cJeffrey Anderson, a senior fellow at the conservative Hudson Institute, said that the problem is that there is a high likelihood that no young people will ever sign up for Obamacare. \u2018There are too many loopholes, too many ways to get around paying if you don't get insurance,\u2019 Anderson told Business Insider. For this reason,\u00a0Anderson does not believe that Obamacare will ever work and shows it is in a \u2018slow-motion death spiral.\u2019\u201d (Business Insider)\n\t\t\u201c\u2018That\u2019s going to be the future,\u2019\u00a0said Roger Stark of the Washington Policy Center in Washington State. \u2018What we\u2019re seeing here is the beginning of a death spiral\u00a0as far as exchanges are concerned as more companies pull out.\u2019\u201d (Fox News)\n\t \n\t \n\t\t\u201cDemocratic lawmakers pushing 'public option' amid ObamaCare woes.\u00a0\u2026\u00a0\u2018I think we're seeing the public option come back out of desperation,\u2019 said Douglas Holtz-Eakin, president of the conservative American Action Forum. \u2018We\u2019ve seen UnitedHealthcare groups, the Aetnas of the world withdraw from exchanges. \u2026 As a result, the kinds of people buying insurance there have very expensive medical bills -- insurers are losing money, as they try to cover those bills, jacking up the premiums, people move to other policies\u00a0so\u00a0it\u2019s turning into the death spiral that everybody worried about,\u2019 said Holtz-Eakin.\u201d (Fox News)\n\t \n\nIndeed, even Democrats knew Obamacare was unraveling, and began plotting to impose government-run health care. Now they are digging in to defend the status quo.\u00a0 But the answer isn\u2019t to ignore the problem. The situation is too dire. The time to act is now. This is the third piece in an ongoing series.  \n\tPart 1:\u00a0Repeal Is Relief  \n\tPart 2:\u00a0ObamaCare Has Failed", 1, "2026-03-30T12:14:52Z", "2026-03-30T12:14:52Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["http://www.speaker.gov/general/how-obamacare-getting-worse"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 2.6352470740675926, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}