Health Care Bills & Premiums

It's not easy to keep up with all the analyses of the various health care proposals in Congress, but here is an interesting report (PDF) that addresses the impact of the current Senate bill on premiums. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates different impacts for different insurance purchasers:

The effects of the proposal on premiums would differ across insurance markets (see Table 1). The largest effects would be seen in the nongroup market, which would grow in size under the proposal but would still account for only 17 percent of the overall insurance market in 2016. The effects on premiums would be much smaller in the small group and large group markets, which would make up 13 percent and 70 percent of the total insurance market, respectively.

CBO estimates that higher impacts would happen for non-group purchasers than for employer-based group insurance purchasers, who could see a small increase or decrease in premiums. The full report is worth checking out.