Higher insurance premiums forecast for 2015

With less than two weeks to go in open enrollment, analysts size up the likelihood of reaching signup targets for young people and worry about the impact of that and other factors on 2015 premiums for exchange plans. The role of insurance brokers is also examined.

Bloomberg: Obamacare's Young Healthy Target Is Slipping Away
As the clock ticks down to the end of open enrollment for health coverage, one thing is becoming clearer: what the final demographics will look like. Demographics matter a lot because they will help determine whether the health insurance market goes into a death spiral (or requires hefty federal subsidies to keep it from doing so). Young healthy people, and a lot of them, are needed to keep the market stable and premiums low. As we head into the final few weeks, we have a pretty good idea of how many young healthy people there will be, and the answer is: a whole lot fewer than the health-care wonks were expecting (McArdle, 3/19).

The Fiscal Times: Insurers On Obamacare: Expect Premium Prices To Soar
Health insurance premiums will likely skyrocket next year, despite the Obama administration's consistent assurance that consumers will not experience sticker shock under the president's health care law. That's according to industry insiders who told The Hill that they are expecting the price of monthly premiums to increase significantly. In some states, rates could increase by as much as 300 percent (Ehley, 3/19).

Marketplace: Where Obamacare Is Shunned, Insurance Brokers Step In
Uninsured people only have until the end of the month to buy coverage under the Affordable Care Act if they want to avoid the new penalty for not having health insurance. In states where politicians are dead set against Obamacare, the task of getting people enrolled is falling to a group that's only too happy to help -- private insurance agents. Despite having one of the highest rates of uninsured people in the nation, Georgia is no friend to the Affordable Care Act. Recently, the state House passed the "Georgia Health Care Freedom and ACA Noncompliance Act" by Republican State Rep. Jason Spencer (Ragusea, 3/19).