A new line item has been added to the bills of Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Alabama customers: “Affordable Care Act Fees and Taxes.”
According to one statement shared with Kaiser Health News, the tax amount is $23.14 a month, which comes out to over $275 annually.
NPR’s Jay Hancock recently shared the fact that BCBS of Alabama has added the line item to their customers’ bills on NPR’s health news blog.
Hancock spoke with Wake Forest University law professor Mark Hall, who said insurers have not typically published taxes on their invoices.
BCBS of Alabama spokeswoman Koko Mackin said they accounted for the taxes in the following ways:
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A fee for the Patient Centered Outcomes Research Institute. Next year it’s $2 per subscriber for the year. PCORI works to control health costs through research that attempts to distinguish wasteful spending from cost-effective procedures.
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A premium tax estimated to add about 2 percent to consumer costs. This is the one insurers really hate and have been trying to delay or get rid of.
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A user fee of 3.5 percent to sell through the online marketplace that the federal government operates for Alabama and 35 other states.
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Reinsurance and risk-adjustment fees to create backstops for insurers with big medical claims as they are required to accept people with pre-existing illness under new price regulations.
Alabamians have continued to express frustration with the president’s healthcare law, especially with the disastrous rollout of Healthcare.gov.
Rep. Martha Roby, R-Montgomery, went as far as to share Alabamians’ ObamaCare horror stories on the floor of the U.S. House. Just this week, one Auburn mother’s exasperating experience trying to navigate the ObamaCare bureaucratic nightmare went viral online.
BCBS of Alabama has continuously placed the blame for skyrocketing insurance costs on ObamaCare. Now it appears they’ll be taking it a step further by showing you exactly how much ObamaCare taxes are adding to your already inflated premiums.
Follow Cliff on Twitter @Cliff_Sims
