New Study Looks at Affordable Care Act Insurance Costs, Before and After in Montana

A new study by the Manhattan Institute compares the price of the lowest cost Health Insurance options for those that don’t have Medicare, Medicaid or insurance through their workplace. Researcher and institute fellow Yevgeniy Feyman explained how costs have changed since the institution of the Affordable Care Act.

"In Montana there's roughly a 19 percent increase for young people around 27, the increase is fairly low for forty-year-olds, for middle age people its about 6 percent, but then, a little bit surprisingly, there's a larger increase for older folks," Feyman said. "For those age 64, those close to retirement, there seeing an increase of about 35 percent on average."

The average cost for 64-year-olds in Montana went up from about $370 dollars a month to about $500. Still, Montana is much better off than the national average.

"Montana is certainly doing better than average, so, on average the increase around the country is around 49 - 50%, so Montana escapes much more unscathed than other states," Yevgeny said.

A Department of Health and Human Services report released today, June 18, shows that the average amount paid by Montanans on the most popular ACA exchange plan (silver) is 78 dollars, which is ten dollars less than the national average. That means that a huge majority of Montanans received federal subsidies to cover the bill.

When asked if the large amount of subsidies would impact the fiscal sustainability of the Affordable Care Act plan, a senior DPHHS official said they didn't know and differed to Congressional Budget Office projections.