Obamacare premiums to soar

WASHINGTON — Premiums will go up sharply next year under President Obama’s health care law, and many consumers will be down to just one insurer, the administration confirmed Monday.

Before taxpayer-provided subsidies, premiums for a midlevel benchmark plan will increase an average of 25% across the 39 states served by the federally run online market, according to a Department of Health and Human Services report. Some states will see much bigger jumps, others less.

Moreover, about one in five consumers will only have plans from a single insurer to pick from, after major national carriers such as United-Health Group, Humana and Aetna scaled back their roles.

“Consumers will be faced this year with not only big premium increases, but also with a declining number of insurers participating, and that will lead to a tumultuous open-enrollment period,” said Larry Levitt, who tracks the law for the nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation. Republicans will pounce on the numbers as confirmation that insurance markets created by the 2010 health overhaul are on the verge of collapsing. The sobering numbers confirmed state reports that have been coming in for months. Administration officials say subsidies provided under the law, which are designed to rise alongside premiums, will insulate most people from sticker shock.