Vox (Ezra Klein) - Obamacare premiums are falling by 0.2% across 48 major cities

[TomCADem]

As the Supreme Court prepares to wipeout the ACA in those States that have not adopted their own exchanges, here is what we will be walking away from.

http://www.vox.com/2014/11/11/7193451/obamacare-premiums-are-falling-by-0-2-across-48-major-cities

In September, the Kaiser Family Foundation looked at insurance premiums for Obamacare's benchmark silver plan in 16 major cities and found, to their surprise, that prices were falling by 0.8 percent on average. On November 11th, they updated the analysis with data for 32 more cities — and found that the initial finding held. On average, prices are falling by 0.2 percent.

"Falling" is not a word that people associate with health-insurance premiums. They tend to rise as regularly as the morning sun. And, to be fair, the Kaiser Family Foundation is only looking at 48 cities, and the drop they record is modest (though this is the same methodology they used in 2014, and to good results). But this data, though preliminary, is some of the best data we have — and it shows that Obamacare is doing a better job holding down costs than anyone seriously predicted, including Kaiser's researchers.

"I expected premium growth to be modest in most of the country," Larry Levitt, a co-author of the report, told Vox's Sarah Kliff in September. "But what we saw were some decreases instead."

* * *
Obamacare is doing better at a lot of things than anyone seriously expected. The law's initial premiums came in cheaper than the Congressional Budget Office projected when the law first passed. In April 2014, the Congressional Budget Office said the unexpectedly low premiums meant Obamacare would cost $104 billion less than they previously thought. If Kaiser's estimates hold nationally, Obamacare's cost will have to be revised downward yet again.

[JDPriestly]

1. Is Obamacare helping more Americans get access to needed medical care?

I talked to a doctor on the weekend who works in a hospital and she says "yes," more patients are coming for the care they need. She thought it was working well. I trust here, and that is good news to me.

[julio_maracas]

2. How many major cities are there?

?