Young People Spared Higher Insurance Premiums Under Obamacare

Young people — who already have everything from all the time in the world to dewy, elastic skin — will not face higher costs/premiums under the Affordable Care Act. However, under the ACA, even the oldest will pay no more than “three times the premium amount of the youngest that live in the same region.”

There are a lot of unknowns currently about what healthcare is going to look like in 2014 (a scant 263 days away!), so news like this can take on an “Any Port in a Storm!” feeling. “The biggest unknown right now for healthcare consumers is how health reform will affect what they pay for health coverage starting in 2014,” Bruce Telkamp, chief executive officer of HealthPocket.com, a website that compares and ranks all health plans, said in a statement. “It is encouraging to know that age rating requirements in the health law will not be a major driver of increases to premiums.”

Highlighted accidentally in all this, though, is the idea that insurance, like dry cleaning, is kind of sexist in requiring different premium price points based on gender: “Currently in most states, a health insurance premium for individual insurance plans purchased by a consumer — not employer-provided health insurance — is based on age as well as other factors such as gender, health and smoking status.