The continuing - and increasing - unaffordability of the "Affordable" Care Act

Sally C. Pipes of the Pacific Research Institute notes in an Investors Business Daily op-ed the hair-raisingly alarming rates of increase in health-insurance premiums of various types in various states, as well as Dem attempts to blame the reforms to the ACA in a free-market direction that have been implemented over the past years (halting cost-sharing reduction subsidies, repealing the individual mandate penalty, proposing to undo the limitations on short-term plans).

Doesn't wash:

ObamaCare premiums were rising well before Republicans took over Washington. Average individual market premiums increased 99% from 2013, the year before the exchanges opened, to 2017, when President Obama left office. And last fall, before these changes were implemented, insurers hiked 2018 individual plan premiums by an average of 34%.

They've repeatedly raised premiums because ObamaCare's burdensome regulations cause insurers to lose money year after year.

For example, the law's community rating mandate prevents insurers from charging older enrollees more than three times what they charge younger ones — even though the average 64-year old is nearly five times more expensive to insure than the average 21-year old.

ObamaCare's guaranteed issue mandate prohibits insurers from denying coverage based on health status. That's even true if customers have costly chronic conditions that will cause insurers to hemorrhage money.

Mandates Everywhere

And the essential health benefits mandate requires all plans to cover 10 broad categories of medical care — including pediatric dental services, maternity care, and substance abuse treatment. All enrollees must pay for these benefits, even if they don't want them.

Without any real ability to control costs, insurers are forced to raise premiums across the board. The Department of Health and Human Services commissioned a study in 2017 to analyze the effect that ObamaCare's regulations had on insurance premiums. It found that these mandates were the "chief driver of premium increases."

Specifically, the study analyzed premium hikes in Georgia, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Tennessee from 2013 to 2017. Researchers found that ObamaCare's mandates — including the community rating and guaranteed issue rules — were responsible for up to 76% of the increases during that period.

As with anything and everything else in this world, the only sensible way forward is toward a totally free market.