The Manhattan Institute report compared the lowest cost premiums on the individual market before the exchanges, adjusted for preexisting condition denials or rate hikes, in each state to the lowest cost premiums on the new exchanges. The methodology explains that it included the five least expensive plans on a county basis before the law took effect and those now being sold on statewide exchanges, excluding catastrophic plans, for 27-, 40- and 64-year-old males and females who don’t smoke.
The institute didn’t adjust the level of benefits or coverage of these plans. As we’ve said before, the law requires certain minimum benefits, which many individual market plans don’t meet. Not everyone will take advantage of, or welcome, those expanded benefits, of course, and the study was looking only at the cheapest plans available on the market before and after these regulations kicked in and the exchanges opened.
Using that methodology, it calculated a wide-range of premium changes on the individual market in Virginia — from a 67 percent increase in premiums for 27-year-old males to a 19 percent decrease for males aged 64.
It didn’t include premiums for catastrophic plans, which could offer a cheaper option to those 27-year-olds. Those under age 30 can purchase catastrophic plans, which cover less than 60 percent of the average cost of health care, but these young adults won’t be eligible for subsidies if they choose such a plan.
The lowest cost catastrophic plan we found on HealthCare.gov for a young person living in Fairfax County, Va., outside of Washington, D.C., was $123.93 per month, for example. That’s $58 less than the average of the five lowest cost state plans, $182, as calculated by the Manhattan Institute without catastrophic plans. But it’s higher than the average of the five lowest cost plans before the Affordable Care Act, $109.
