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Thanks To Democrats, Seniors’ Healthcare Costs Are Skyrocketing
By Jack Hellner
Oct. 01, 2025
As Milton Friedman always said, governments cause inflation. Thus, the government is behind the massive increase in college tuition. That affects a lot of people, but what affects even more is health care. Join me as I explain how the falsely named Affordable Care Act (ACA) (Obamacare) and Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) have caused massive inflation in healthcare and health insurance costs since 2009.
In 2009, when the average cost of an individual health policy was under $100 and family coverage was under $400, democrats decided that health insurance cost too much, and too many didn’t have coverage.
Therefore, without any Republican support, they wrote a 1,000-page bill. They called the bill the “Affordable Care Act,” a misnomer intended to mislead the American people into supporting the bill. The mostly compliant media went along and chastised those who dared question the bill.
There were thousands of pages of additional regulations and many new taxes, along with the takeover of student loans, to pretend the bill was paid for. Democrats also falsely told the public that the bill would substantially lower premiums.
In fact, the bill took away freedom of choice and reduced competition. It got rid of lifetime and annual limits, so small and medium-sized companies couldn’t afford the risk. There was also no incentive for medical providers to control costs.
As prices soared, instead of limiting the scope of their promises about how the government would fix healthcare costs, the Democrats have instead worked to increase subsidies and increase the income levels of individuals and families who can get the subsidies. They needed more people to sign up to make it seem as if the ACA is popular and necessary. This just increased premiums even more and made insurance more unaffordable.
Something the Democrats intentionally left out of the bill that could have potentially reduced premiums and medical costs was any limits on punitive, not compensatory, damages in lawsuits. They left it out because Democrats receive significant sums of money from trial lawyers. Consider that Democrats put severe limits on profit margins for insurers, reducing the number of competitors, but they refuse to put any limits on lawsuits. The potential of unlimited lawsuit damages clearly raises prices.
After 15 years of the ACA or Obamacare, the average cost of individual coverage is over $600 per month, up over 500% and family coverage is up to over $2,000 per month, which is up over 400%. Meanwhile, overall inflation was 41.60% for this time period, even including the disastrous Biden years.
Yet, the media and other Democrats continue to claim that Obamacare has made healthcare more affordable, and any attempt by Republicans to change the laws means they want people to die.
Today, Democrats are threatening to shut down the government if the Republicans don’t keep the jacked-up subsidies that were supposedly an emergency caused by COVID.
Democrats didn’t stop with the ACA. In August 2022, Democrats passed the falsely named IRA, which was essentially a green slush fund. Hiding in the bill was a disaster for seniors.
Democrats pretended that seniors would save lots of money with adjustments to Medicare Part D. In fact, Biden bureaucrats implemented adjustments to the plan to hide the major price hikes until after the election. Part of what they delayed was a significant increase in prescription drug costs. They also managed to delay inevitable, and huge, increases in premiums:
President Biden promised the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) would lower drug costs for Medicare beneficiaries. Instead, seniors are facing the highest premiums in the programs’ history with the fewest number of available plans.
A new report by the Council for Affordable Health Coverage tracks how the IRA’s redesign of Part D is increasing premiums, reducing competition and choice, and raising out-of-pocket costs. The legislation was praised for its six percent cap on premiums, but it only applies to the “base premium,” not the actual premiums paid by most beneficiaries.
This year, Part D premiums increased an average of 21 percent. In October, when seniors choose their 2025 coverage, they are likely to see premium increases from 50 up to 100 percent or more. However, with those increases come fewer plan choices, higher out-of-pocket costs, more utilization review, and reduced Medicare Advantage benefits.
My wife and I have very low prescription costs. We could certainly afford to self-insure our three generic prescriptions per month, but we are not allowed to. We are forced to pay. We also have only a few options where to buy, so we buy from a major insurer.
Here is what our premiums on this have done since Democrats passed the IRA. We have to pay the following for each of us.
In 2023, the cost was $4.90 per month each. This was clearly a teaser rate.
In 2024, the cost went up to $9.90 per month, a 102% increase.
In 2025, the cost went up to $44.90 per month, a 354% increase.
On Friday, I got the notice for 2026 that the premium will be $94.90 per month, a 111% increase.
My guess is that this is the rate I will see from the other few insurance companies that will write these policies, which will supposedly save us money. So, in 25 months, our rate for both of us went up 1,837% and Democrats tout that they save seniors money. A small percentage of people will save money, but most of us will be screwed endlessly.
It is truly a shame that Democrats think that we shouldn’t have freedom of choice on so many things when their laws clearly decrease competition. Trump will be blamed for the 2025 and 2026 increases by the media and other Democrats, even though they are clearly the fault of Democrat laws.
Meanwhile, social security recipients will get a whopping 2.7% increase. The average recipient will barely get enough to cover this increase, let alone anything else.
We were told in 2009 that the ACA would also increase the quality and length of life. However, one of the advisors on the ACA was Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, brother of Rahm Emanuel. He believes that once you hit age 75, you have essentially lived long enough. Is he a person we should trust to help design our health system?
Sadly, once a government subsidy program starts, it is hard to stop because someone will always be hurt. The program’s actual results and the effect on the budget deficit and the rest of us don’t matter.
The media obviously know that health premiums and costs have skyrocketed since the ACA passed, yet they continue to claim that Obamacare has made healthcare more affordable. They also argue (as they are during this budget battle) that any Republican attempt to change the laws means they want people to die.
Why do people posing as journalists think they deserve to get a paycheck if all they do is regurgitate Democrat talking points?
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Source: American Thinker
Link:
https://www.americanthinker.com/arti...rocketing.html
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