Republican senators opposed to ObamaCare introduced legislation Wednesday to waive the individual penalty for not buying health insurance due to what one lawmaker said are “intolerable” increases in insurance rates along with a lack of choice next year from health insurers offering health exchange plans.
“Come November, nearly a third of the nation’s counties will have only one insurer for you to choose from when you have to buy health insurance on the regional Obamacare exchange as the market collapses and insurance companies are leaving the Obamacare exchanges in droves,” said U.S. Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., the chairman of the Senate Health Committee. “This legislation would allow your state to give you the option of buying health insurance wherever you can find it whether on or off the Obamacare exchange.”
Alexander has called the 62 percent average rate increase planned next year by the Chattanooga-based Blue- Cross BlueShield of Tennessee “intolerable,” making the Affordable Care Act unsustainable. Cigna and Humana will compete with BlueCross in Tennessee’s urban cities with individual health care plans, but they are each planning rate increases of more than 40 percent in 2017.
Despite record rate increases planned next year by health insurers still participating in the health exchange plans in Tennessee under the Affordable Care Act, the White House said Wednesday that the health care reform measure is benefiting most Tennesseans.
Backers of ObamaCare touted new studies showing that more Tennesseans have health care insurance and costs for employer-sponsored plans are rising slower with better health care results under the Affordable Care Act than they did before the law was adopted in 2010.