Obamacare costs hidden until 2016
“HealthPocket wanted to know whether there was a pent-up demand for health services that thePatient Protection and Affordable Care Act would release. So the company surveyed 1,356 U.S. adults, asking them: “Would better health insurance coverage lead you to see the doctor more often or get a medical procedure you had put off?”
“The findings: While 57 percent said they would change the way they currently use health services, 15 percent said they’d elect to have a medical procedure done that they’d been postponing, and 27 percent said they’d definitely go to the doctor more frequently.
“So, with 42 percent of respondents indicating they would increase their medical services usage, HealthPocket drew this conclusion:
“Insurance premiums in the second year of Obamacare, 2015, may experience a temporary rise due to the pent-up demand for medical procedures being addressed in 2014. Assuming a two-year period for consumers to exhaust pent-up healthcare demand, the true baseline for Obamacare’s effect upon health insurance premiums should be evident in 2016.”
Publius Prime 