The Obama administration announced today that the five billion dollar federal health insurance program to insure those with serious pre-existing conditions will be much more costly than predicted. Of course it depends on who made the initial prediction in the first place. At the time the program was first introduced last year there were non-governmental predictions that the program would cost twice the amount forecasted by the Obama administration.
Instead of the projected $13,000 in claims per policy holder this year, it is now projected that each of the enrolled will use nearly $29,000 in medical services. This figure, interestingly enough, is double the amount most states spent on similar high-risk pools that they have been running for many years. Those enrolled in the Obama high-risk pool health insurance program have eight times as many in-patient stays and three times as many ER visits than the average person.
Due to the six month period a person must be uninsured before qualifying for the high risk pool health insurance program, (and be denied by a private health insurance carrier,) many institutions predicted that patients would simply wait for care during this time, obtaining medical attention and filing claims immediately once enrolled. Another factor causing the large cost increase is the fact that the average policy holder is over the age of 45. The program now has nearly 50,000 individuals with serious pre-existing conditions enrolled, a number that had been predicted to be nearly 400,000 by this time. The first year of the program ended with roughly 9,000 enrolled, primarily due to very high premium rates. The federal government slashed prices by 40% to increase enrollment, yet the number of insured are still much less than expected, making it that much more difficult to spread the risk and keep premiums and costs affordable.