Senator Mike Crapo (R-ID) interrogated Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius during her testimony before the Senate Finance Committee on Wednesday morning on whether the Affordable Care Act was reducing insurance premiums in the individual marketplace.
“We are seeing millions of Americans lose their health care,” Crapo said. “Millions and millions more see their health care premiums going up, and the price for some of these fixes that you are talking about is phenomenally higher than we understood or was represented. Isn’t it time to go in and take a look at the areas of the law that are simply failing?”
“Actually, senator, in the marketplace, the rates have come in about 16% lower than what the Congressional Budget Office projected those rates to be,” the secretary responded.
“That’s not lower than actual facts,” Crapo said, referring to the difference between what rates were before the ACA, versus what the CBO projected them to be after the ACA. “Are you saying that in the individual market, insurance rates are going down?”
“I didn’t say they are going down,” Sebelius said. “But that the rates are lower than was predicted. For millions of people in the market, they will actually, for the first time ever, have some financial help paying for their health insurance.”
