MIT health economist — and Romneycare architect — Jon Gruber showed that premiums in the non-group market, which was the market most affected by the reforms, fell sharply after the law’s introduction. But another group of economists, including Romney-campaign adviser Glenn Hubbard, published a paper showing that premiums in the employer market were rising more quickly than the national average.
But the data used by Hubbard and his coauthors only went through 2008. Fred Bauer has taken another look at the numbers, which now include 2009 and 2010. And now, those same numbers show the situation has turned around. “From 2006 to 2010, employer-sponsored health-care premiums for a family rose about 19% in Massachusetts, while they rose about 22% in the US as a whole,” he writes. “Compare that to the period between 2002 and 2006, when Bay State family premiums increased 40% and US family premiums rose only 34.5%.” Individual premiums have also been growing more slowly than the national average.
So Romneycare is working. Across the board. But perhaps, as Romney implies, there’s something that makes it unsuitable for the rest of the nation.
If that’s so, however, we’re not seeing it yet.
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