Cost of Affordable Care Act unknown for taxpayers


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SALT LAKE CITY — Tuesday's open enrollment under President Obama's health care law is presenting questions not only for the previously uninsured, but the insured as well.

Among the uncertainties according to activists, doctors and employers: whether and how much insurance premiums will increase for everybody, and what impacts the law will have at the doctor's office and in the workplace.

"I'm not sure what it's going to do on my premiums," Troy Sampson said downtown Monday.

Sampson, an employee for a large company, said he isn't certain how vulnerable his insurance coverage is to increased costs as a result of the new law.

"I guess it could bring the premiums up," Sampson said. "I know it's going to affect small business for sure."

At G&A Partners in South Jordan, regional vice president Aaron Call said the law will affect the cost decisions businesses make down the road.

The company offers a variety of services to small and mid-size companies, including helping to formulate employee health plans that fit a company's budget.

"I think the biggest concern right now is just the unknown," Call said. "You have things getting delayed on a consistent basis. You have regulation being refined and changed on a consistent basis. I think most employers are trying to take a step back and understand what's going on - and obviously you have the cost issues that are lingering."

Call forecasts that any additional costs incurred by companies will ultimately be passed on to employees and prospective workers, whether through higher insurance premiums, or even through less hiring and layoffs.

"It's going to have a trickle-down effect," Call said. "Ultimately the employee is going to end up bearing the majority of that cost."

How it works

Here's how the system works: Head to healthcare.gov and the website will walk you through some easy steps, even select the most capable plan for your family's needs. Then you can put them in a "shopping cart."

You don't have to give any medical history.

The White House said this is one of the most transparent ways to select health care and there's no fine print.

Call said what happens in any given company depends on what the business has done in the past with regard to benefits.

"If you're an employer where you've had the strategy in the past of not providing strong benefits, it's certainly going to be a tremendous impact," Call said.

Doctor shortage?

Various reports in recent years have pointed to an influx of new patients at doctor's offices and an exacerbated shortage of doctors.

Arches Health Plan chief medical officer Dr. Douglas Smith said he doesn't believe doctors will make major changes anytime soon in who they see.

"Most of the providers that I've gone out and spoken with understand that this is just part of the world that's coming," Smith said.

At the Utah Health Policy Project, executive director Matt Slonaker said he anticipated a short-term impact on the medical infrastructure, as more people catch up with long-needed medical services.

Covering the uninsured
The average cost of a health insurance premium is just over $2,000 a year, and about half of that cost goes to covering the uninsured.

13.2 percent of the total population in Utah went without health insurance in 2012, according to a report released Monday by the Utah Department of Health.

The numbers are only a slight improvement from those insured in 2011. Local numbers are slightly below the 15 percent national average.

Still, he said the number of doctors and nurses would likely meet the demand in a few years.

"Eventually what we'll see is the workforce responding," Slonaker said.

"Reasonable" increases?

Slonaker also disputed any kind of skyrocketing insurance costs as a result of the change in the law. He instead characterized the increases as "reasonable" - and pointed to what will be a growing risk pool.

"There will be some upward pressures because it is the health care sector and health care inflation is quite strong," Slonaker said. "I think they'll be reasonable. I don't think the, I guess,' doom-and-gloom' predictions or the ‘sky-is-falling' predictions are going to come true. I don't think we'll see rate cost growth in anything out of line with history and probably even less."

Hinckley Institute of Politics representative, Tim Chambless, said the expense of the Affordable Care Act for taxpayers is unknown.

"It's a crystal ball question that deserves a crystal ball answer," Chambless said. "What we have created is an experiment. The experiment is better than what we had which is nothing. So the hope is that this experiment will work, but we don't know."

If all Utahns who are eligible for the Affordable Care Act sign up for it, local experts predict the uninsured will be reduced by 50 percent.

Contributing: Devon Dolan

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