Health Insurers: Huge Obamacare Premium Hikes Are Coming

Thanks, Obamacare:

Some Americans could see their insurance bills double next year as the health care overhaul law expands coverage to millions of people. The nation's big health insurers say they expect premiums — or the cost for insurance coverage — to rise from 20 to 100 percent for millions of people due to changes that will occur when key provisions of the Affordable Care Act roll out in January 2014. Mark Bertolini, CEO of Aetna Inc., one of the nation's largest insurers, calls the price hikes "premium rate shock." "We've done all the math, we've shared it with all the regulators, we've shared it with all the people in Washington that need to see it, and I think it's a big concern," Bertolini said during the company's annual meeting with investors in December. To be sure, there will be no across-the-board rate hikes for everyone, and there's no reliable national data on how many people could see increases.

But the biggest price hikes are expected to hit a group that represents a relatively small slice of the insured population. That includes some of the roughly 14 million people who buy their own insurance as opposed to being covered under employer-sponsored plans, and to a lesser extent, some employees of smaller companies. The price increases are a downside of President Barack Obama's health care law, which is expected to expand coverage to nearly 30 million uninsured people. The massive law calls for a number of changes that could cause premiums for people who don't have coverage through a big employer to rise next year — at a time when health care costs already are expected to grow by 5 percent or more.

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