660: 'It is like refusing to pay for regular oil changes to save money' (Audio)

Back in August, during an interview on Plain Talk, North Dakota Insurance Commissioner Jon Godfread said that Congress needed to renew subsidies for Obamacare marketplace policies to avoid a "death spiral" in the insurance market brought on by younger, healthier shoppers reacting to price spikes by giving up their policies.

Well, it's December now. The year is almost over, and Congress hasn't acted. Not only have subsidies not been renewed, majority Republicans haven't even unveiled a plan to address that specific problem, or the larger challenge of spiraling health care and health insurance rates.

On this episode of Plain Talk, Shelly Ten Napel, CEO of the Community HealthCare Association of the Dakotas, said many of the tens of thousands of families in our region that get their insurance through the federal marketplace could end up paying twice as much.

"So, without the enhanced premium tax credits, your percent goes up to 9.16 for that family of four, which is $672 a month," she said. So, it's more than double 363 to um 672. And your annual for the year would be over $8,000."

Ten Napel echoed Godfread's point about the "death spiral," pointiing out that younger and healthier insurance customers would probably react rationally to these sort of massive price hikes by leaving the market.

"What we would expect is that probably healthy people will be the first people to drop coverage. So, those younger individuals, those people without current chronic conditions," she said. This would mean that "our risk pool's going to get sicker and so the costs are going to go up for everybody."

Ten Napel said that, even as Congress wallows in dysfunction on this issue and others, there are things states like North Dakota can do to address health care, and thus health insurance, costs. More investment in preventative care, for instance, the neglect of which is akin to "refusing to pay for regular oil changes to save money."

Also on this episode, co-host Chad Oban and I discuss the controversy over bonuses in the Retirement and Investment Office, the need for greater transparency when it comes to the economic incentives our state and local governments offer, and the perenially unsuccessful Rick Becker running for elected office, again, in the 2026 cycle.

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