Whatever the cause of the higher premiums, however, this trend presents a key structural challenge to Obamacare. The health care law aims to prevent insurers from discriminating against those with pre-existing conditions, to make sure that policies cover a specified package of benefits, and to limit how much extra money insurers can charge older and sicker patients. All of these provisions increase costs and decrease insurance industry profits. But through the mandate forcing individuals to purchase insurance, the law hopes to push enough younger and healthier Americans into the insurance pool to offset theses cost increases. This is where the problem with rising premiums comes in.

The Times story notes that, “Particularly vulnerable to the high rates are small businesses and people who do not have employer-provided insurance and must buy it on their own.” This is precisely the population that the federal government hopes to induce to purchase insurance through the mandate. But as the Obama administration argued before the Supreme Court, those who choose not to purchase insurance would still be in compliance with the law so long as they paid the tax penalty for not purchasing insurance. Should premiums continue to rise, more and more uninsured Americans are going to choose to pay the penalty rather than purchase expensive insurance. And those who go without insurance are more likely to be the ones who can afford to do so — young and healthy Americans with limited medical expenses. Should this occur, insurers would have to raise premiums even more to subsidize the expenses of the sicker beneficiaries they must cover under the law.