ObamaCare Overhead: $2,500 Per Newly Insured Enrollee – Investors.com.
Add it all up, and ObamaCare’s startup cost is at least $6.7 billion. Even if every one of the 8 million enrollees pays their premiums all year, the cost is more than $837 per sign-up.
And if recent surveys are correct that just a third of enrollees previously lacked coverage, ObamaCare will have cost $2,500 for each newly insured person.
It is certainly true that much of these are startup expenses that won’t recur in future years. And the sign-up numbers don’t include the people who went to the exchanges and ended up in Medicaid plans. Plus, the administration expects overall enrollment to climb in future years.
But the ongoing costs of the exchanges will not be insignificant. Healthcare.gov is adding a 3.5% premium surcharge on every plan sold through it to pay ongoing costs of the federal exchange. And some states are worried that not enough people signed up through their exchanges to make them financially viable after the federal grant money runs out.
When you add in the subsidy costs, ObamaCare gets really expensive. According to the Congressional Budget Office, exchange subsidies this year will total $21 billion, with the average subsidy for each person who gets one topping $4,400.
Much of these subsidy costs, however, are simply offsetting the premium hikes ObamaCare itself forced into the market.
According to the White House, for example, the cheapest Bronze plan for a 27-year-old averaged $163 a month in the 36 federal-exchange states. Before ObamaCare, the cheapest plans in those states averaged $54 a month, according to the Government Accountability Office.
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