Dental insurance premiums rise as Obamacare takes hold
Dental coverage has gone up in the United States, as the Affordable Care Act takes hold.
According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, the average cost of dental coverage jumped 4 percent last year, which was the largest increase of any year.
In a press release announcing the report, the foundation said that consumers are spending more on their insurance than they were in 2015, as they have more disposable income to spend on dental care.
“In 2015, we predicted that the rise in premiums for the uninsured would be smaller than it was, and that the ACA would bring down premiums for everyone,” said Kaiser Health News senior policy analyst Dr. Michael A. McCarron.
“As we’ve seen over the past year, that prediction has proven to be correct.
And in some states, the rise of insurance costs for the poor and sick is larger than the rise for everyone else.”
The rising cost of insurance is partly a result of Obamacare, which is expected to cost an estimated $7,000 per year for a family of four.
While some of that will be offset by the ACA’s tax credits, the rising cost will be a drag on the economy, according to Kaiser.
According the foundation, the insurance market is “on track to reach its peak in 2018.”
The foundation said premiums are expected to increase in 2019, with premiums continuing to rise for the next three years, until 2020, and then increasing until 2024.
As of April, the ACA has more than 3 million people insured, with about 12.4 million receiving premium subsidies.
According a Kaiser Health report from 2016, about 17 million people had insurance through an employer and another 12 million had insurance on their own.
That works out to about 6.4 percent of Americans.
The foundation also noted that premiums have been rising more quickly for people with pre-existing conditions.
For instance, premiums for those with preexisting conditions are more expensive than the premiums for people without pre-conditions.
