EDITORIAL: Another Obamacare whack for Illinois: Price hikes of 43 percent?

Aug. 02--U.S. Senate Republicans belly-flopped recently in an attempt to overhaul Obamacare. Many Democrats, meanwhile, have remained steadfastly opposed to significant fixes to the law because, well, it's a success in their estimation.

On Tuesday, federal officials released the Obamacare rates for Illinois in 2018. Insurers propose to hike health insurance prices by as much as 43 percent next year for those who buy coverage through Obamacare exchanges. That's on top of nosebleed-section rate increases of more than 40 percent for 2017.

So this is success? We'd hate to see failure. And those promises from candidate Barack Obama that a universal health care bill would "cut the cost of a typical family's premium by up to $2,500 a year"? Hmm.

Not that these serial Illinois rate leaps are a surprise. Other states have already released preliminary rates, and many are seeking average increases greater than 30 percent for the next year. Illinois consumers are just the latest to get whacked -- although with even worse-than-average news.

These rate shocks are the latest sign that Obamacare remains in deep distress. Too many younger, healthy people are snubbing insurance, opting to pay relatively small fines. That leaves too many sick people with hefty medical bills in the insurance pool, forcing insurers to raise rates.

That unforgiving cycle has spurred many insurers, which have suffered heavy losses, to abandon Obamacare markets in many states. Remaining insurers are continuing to provide coverage, raising rates to reduce their losses -- and hoping that Congress fixes or replaces the law.

Obamacare will continue to crumble absent a new bipartisan push to fix it. That's still a long shot. But on Tuesday, Republican Sen. Lamar Alexander of Tennessee announced that the bipartisan leadership of the Senate health committee soon will start to craft legislation to "stabilize and strengthen the individual health market" for 2018. Separately, three Illinois House members -- Democrats Dan Lipinski and Brad Schneider and Republican Adam Kinzinger -- are in a group of 43 representatives advancing their own compromise plan to stabilize markets. A foreshadowing of genuine and enduring cooperation between Democrats and Republicans to fix Obamacare? We hope so.

After the Senate GOP failure, President Donald Trump renewed a threat to stop paying government-provided cost-sharing subsidies that help millions afford insurance. Rates likely would rise further, and many lower-income people wouldn't be able to afford insurance. More insurers would bail: More than 4 in 10 insurers said they'd likely leave Obamacare if those payments stopped, in a survey by consulting firm Oliver Wyman Health. Others said they'd refile proposed rates, presumably hiking them to cover the loss of those government payments.

That would bring more chaos to markets that never have been as robust or appealing as promised when Democrats rammed the Affordable Care Act into law seven years ago.

We've long urged Democrats and Republicans to cooperate to overhaul the law. To provide customers more flexibility of choice. To curb premium costs. And to deliver what the law promised but, as the new Illinois rates attest, hasn't delivered: affordable coverage.

Join the discussion on Twitter @Trib_Ed_Board and on Facebook.

Become a subscriber today to support editorial writing like this. Start getting full access to our signature journalism for just 99 cents for the first four weeks.

___

(c)2017 the Chicago Tribune

Visit the Chicago Tribune at www.chicagotribune.com

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.