Does the rise in ACA premiums affect employer-provided health insurance premiums?
There are a lot of moving parts, individual premiums and annual increases have little to do with employer premiums and annual increases and vice versa.  Most people think of XYZ insurer as a single company with a single pool of insured folks.  This common knowledge isn't accurate.  Insurers pool their business segments separately.  This means that Individual, small business, mid-size business, and large business are all different operating segments from the viewpoint of the insurer.    It's possible to argue that because so many people are covered by employer plans that individual plans have a hard time accumulating the required critical mass of subscribers to keep increases reasonable.   Age banded rating: Individual coverage and small group coverage is age rated, meaning every year you get older.  In addition to your age increase, the premium table for your plan also receives an increase.  Employers with 100+ eligible employees are composite rated (in general), meaning every employee costs the same amount.  The 18 year old employee costs $500 per month, the 64 year old costs $500 per month.  Generally, the contributions an employee pays to participate in the plan are also common among all ages.  This means that on a micro level increases can be more incremental because the employer is abstracting the gross premium.  Composite rating generally benefits older folks while age rating generally benefits younger folks. Employer Morale Incentive: Generally the cost to an employee covered by an employer plan isn't directly correlated to the gross premium, and increases to the contribution(s) aren't necessarily correlated to the increases the employer receives.  Employers are incentivised by employee morale.  It's pretty common for employers to shoulder a disproportionate amount of an increase to keep everyone happy.  Employers may offset the increase by shopping some ancillary benefit like group life insurance, or bundling the dental program with the medical carrier.  Remember, employees don't pay premiums they pay contributions and some employers are more generous than others.  Employers are also better at budgeting for planned increases than individuals are. Regulators: In many of the states that are making the news because of their healthcare premium increases there simply isn't a regulator scrutinizing increases.  California requires all individual and small group premiums to be filed with the state and increases must be justified with some sort of math and approved by a regulator.  Without this kind of oversight insurers have only the risk of subscriber flight to adjust plan provisions and press harder during provider contract negotiations. Expiring Transitional Reinsurance Fee and Funds: One of the fees introduced by healthcare reform paid by insurers and self-insured employers established a pot of money that individual plans could tap to cope with the new costs of the previously uninsurable folks.  This fee and corresponding pot of money is set to expire and can no longer be taken in to account by underwriters. Increased Treatment Availability: It's important that as new facilities go online, insurer costs will increase.  If a little town gets a new cancer clinic, that pool will see more cancer treatment costs simply as a result of increased treatment availability.  Consider that medical care inflation is running at about 4.9% annually as of the most recent CPI table, the rest of the increases will result from the performance of that specific risk pool.  If that risk pool had a lot of cancer diagnoses, you're looking at a big increase.  If that risk pool was under priced the prior year you will see an above average increase, etc. "It's likely impossible to determine why premiums are increasing in a meaningful way; not only is the interrelationship between the various data points very complex, but some of the increases are likely due to decisions by people who do not and will not publicly post what they decided and why. However, it is possible to compare health insurance premium increases over time to see if the increases in employer-sponsored health insurance premiums are comparable or not to the pre-ACA timeframe. Since the ACA phased in over a few years, we can compare the period 2008-2010 ""pre-ACA"" and 2013-2015 ""post-ACA"", ignoring 2011-2012 as being unclearly affected by the ACA phase-in.  For this, I will look at single coverage premiums only for the purpose of simplifying the analysis. I found a good table of 2008-2010 premiums from the NCSL; they list the following: Kaiser Permanente had a good list for 2013-2015 here: From 2008-2010, the average growth was around 6% per year.  From 2013-2015, the growth averaged about 3%.  In both of these cases we are comparing total premiums (sum of employer and employee contributions). So, from a data-driven look, it seems that the premium growth is lower post-ACA than pre-ACA, so it's unlikely that the ACA could be accused of causing increased premium growth.  Of course, this is US-wide average, and on a state-by-state basis there may well be significant differences that may or may not be related to the ACA. One thing that is covered on the NCSL page linked above that is interesting: while the premium growth has slowed significantly (about 50% of the growth pre-ACA), health insurance premiums are a higher proportion of employee's wages, and that growth is continuing - because wage growth has not kept pace with inflation post-2008 recession.  Employee contributions also may be higher post-recession; many companies reduced their contribution percentage (as my then employer did, for example).   Finally, increases in the ACA plans are also commonly overstated.  They largely are in line with employer plans or even less.   In 2015, premiums were basically flat, decreasing slightly in fact - see the KFF analysis here.  2016 saw a 3.6% by this methodology (see the 2016 analysis).   It's very easy to cherrypick examples that are favorable to any interpretation from the data, though; there are such big swings as a result of the different conditions in the marketplaces that it's easy to pick a few that have high swings and claim the ACA has massive premium increases, or pick a few that have low swings and claim it's reducing costs." Depends on the insurance company itself, as well as the costs of treatments. Imagine an ideal scenario where costs of treatments stayed the same, and that all insurance plans were segregated and pulled from the same pool of funds to pay for treatments. Then employer subsidized health insurance plans would be unaffected by the drama in the ACA plans. Those are the factors to consider, from my understanding. But I wouldn't be surprised if the burdens of accepting people that would previously never have been serviced by these companies has greatly distorted the market as a whole.
"It's a tough question, because there is society and individual to consider, and the society's effects on the individual.  Currently, employers don't have to provide insurance, they do it to compete in the employee marketplace. Employers have an advantage over employees in that regard, because they can procure insurance at a lower cost that employees can, and they get tax breaks for doing so. Employers providing health insurance get a more stable relationship with their employees, because employees always hold great value in having an employee who provides good benefits.  The company I work for provides good benefits, but suppose tomorrow they told me ""Hey Mutatron, we're not providing benefits anymore, but we'll bump your salary to what your benefits are worth, plus enough to compensate for the tax break we get."" So now, everything is equal to what it was before, but I have to go out and find my own insurance, which is a hassle, but presumably because of the PPACA I can get a good value and carry this insurance with me wherever I go, and never have to mess with changing every time I change jobs.  But suppose all the employers do this, so now there are no employer-provided health plans, and ten or twenty years down the line they've all just taken advantage so that wages haven't kept up and they've essentially pocketed the difference, or passed it on to their customers. Now people have less money to buy health insurance, and those near the bottom will now have to rely on the government to assist with providing health insurance.  This is the way it works now with the minimum wage. A recent report found that WalMart employees rely on welfare to the tune of [$2.66 billion a year](http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/10/10/1141724/-Walmart-fuels-inequality-epidemic-taking-advantage-of-our-safety-net), while the company makes $15 billion in profit. So 18% of Walmart's profits are an indirect subsidy from the US taxpayer, which comes to about $48 per US citizen, or about $208 a year for the top 50% of wage earners.  Even so, I think I'd prefer to get my whole compensation package in one shot, all else being equal. That last part is important, though, I would need to get all the breaks my employer gets for providing myself with health insurance." Free healthcare is not a human right and the affordable care act is not healthcare, it's mandated health insurance - a guarantee of payment to private insurance companies. It is a tax on the poor. They can't afford the rising healthcare costs from the bubble ACA created, so now they have to pay a fine. That's a tax. In America, if you go into a hospital without insurance, you will be treated. But now, if you don't have insurance, you're also a criminal. It's the slow, constant creep of socialism. You can free yourself by becoming a member of a health share that is cash-based and exempt from the ACA tax penalty. I use Samaritan Ministries (top rated) and it's been a great experience. To add to JoeTaxpayer's answer, the cost of providing (term) life insurance for one year increases with the age of the insured. Thus, if you buy a 30-year term policy with level premiums (the premium is the same for 30 years) then, during the earlier years, you pay more than the cost to the insurance company for providing the benefit. In later years, you pay somewhat less than the cost of providing the insurance. The excess premiums that the insurance company charged in earlier years and the earnings from investing that money covers the difference between the premium paid in later years and the true cost of providing the coverage.  If after 20 years you decide that you no longer need the protection (children have grown up and now have jobs etc) and you cancel the policy, you will have overpaid for the protection that you got. The insurance company will not give you backsies on the overpayment. As an alternative, you might want to consider a term life insurance policy in which the premiums increase each year (or increase every 5 years) and thus better approximate the actual cost to the insurance company. One advantage is that you pay less in early life and pay more in later years (when hopefully your income will have increased and you can afford to pay more). Thus, you can get a policy with a larger face value (150K for your wife and 400K for yourself is really quite small) with annual premium of $550 now and more in later years. Also if you decide to cancel the policy after 20 years, you will not have overpaid for the level of coverage provided. Finally, in addition to a policy with larger face value, I recommend that you include the mortgage (if any) on your house in the amount that you decide is enough for your family to live on and to send the kids to college, etc., or get a separate (term life insurance) policy to cover the mortgage on your home. Many mortgage contracts have clauses to the effect that the entire principal owed becomes immediately due if either of the borrowers dies. Yes, the widow or widower can get a replacement mortgage, or prove to the lender that the monthly payments will continue as before, (or pay off the mortgage from that $150K or $400K which will leave a heck of a lot less for the family to survive on) etc., but in the middle of dealing with all the hassles created by a death in the family, this is one headache that can be taken care of now.  The advantage of including the mortgage amount in a single policy that will support the family when you are gone is that you get a bit of a break; the sum of the annual premiums on ten policies for $100K is more than the premiums for a single $1M policy. There is also the consideration that the principal owed on the mortgage declines over the years (very slowly at first, though) and so there will be more money available for living expenses in later years. Alternatively, consider a special term life insurance policy geared towards mortgage coverage. The face value of this policy reduces each year to match the amount still due on the mortgage. Note that you may already have such a policy in place because the lender has insisted on you getting such a policy as a condition for issuing the loan. In this case, keep in mind that not only is the lender the  beneficiary of such a policy, but if you bought the policy through the lender, you are providing extra profit to the lender; you can get a similar policy at lower premiums on the open market than the policy that your lender has so thoughtfully provided you.  I bought mine from a source that caters to employees of nonprofit organizations and public sector employees; your mileage may vary. Sorry to hear about your spouse's health issues. May he have a speedy and, as far as possible, full recovery. The Patient Protectection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA, aka Obamacare) is now the law of the land. Among its many provisions are that insurers may no longer deny coverage for pre-existing conditions, they may not put lifetime caps on benefits, and they may not charge different premiums based on any criteria except age cohort and geographic area (i.e. rates may be higher for 50 year olds than 30 year olds, but sick and healthy 50 year olds living in the same area pay the same). If he gets government health coverage because he's on disability, this may not matter. On the other hand, you might find it better to put him on your employer's policy, because you like the coverage better, the employer covers part of the dependent premium, or some other reason. In any case, they can't discriminate against him or you based on his condition. ETA: Rates may vary by geography as well as age. ACA has market stabilizing mechanisms like cost-sharing reduction subsidies.  Republicans have been blocking that in recently, causing many insurance companies to pull out of some states.  I imagine repeal will just be a continuation of that until there is less competition and insurance companies make higher margins to offset the risk of unprofitable quarters.  So maybe they make more money because of higher margins or maybe they don't because they lose subsidies. 1)  When you apply for insurance you indicate your expected income, they figure the subsidy based on this.  Note that while this data isn't checked it's only an estimate, any errors will be fixed at tax time so lying is just going to gain you an unpleasant tax bill come April 15. 2)  It's not paid in installments, it's just a monthly premium.  It's quite possible for someone to be on the ACA for only part of a year. 3)  I can't address the issue of the fines.  However, you are wrong on who it's for--it's for anyone who doesn't have employer-provided insurance, whatever the reason.  I've been on it since it's inception because I have been self employed for most of that time--there's no employer to even offer me insurance. Sorry to hear about your spouse's health issues. May he have a speedy and, as far as possible, full recovery. The Patient Protectection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA, aka Obamacare) is now the law of the land. Among its many provisions are that insurers may no longer deny coverage for pre-existing conditions, they may not put lifetime caps on benefits, and they may not charge different premiums based on any criteria except age cohort and geographic area (i.e. rates may be higher for 50 year olds than 30 year olds, but sick and healthy 50 year olds living in the same area pay the same). If he gets government health coverage because he's on disability, this may not matter. On the other hand, you might find it better to put him on your employer's policy, because you like the coverage better, the employer covers part of the dependent premium, or some other reason. In any case, they can't discriminate against him or you based on his condition. ETA: Rates may vary by geography as well as age. But they aren't, your number fails to compare the US to any other countries in 2013. My numbers do compare the rate in the US to other countries over four different years.   Edit: also, it is funny that the rate cost rise in the US has increased since we passed the afordable care act... hmmm....