Tom Price: Repealing ACA mandate will drive up marketplace costs

Former Secretary of Health and Human Services Tom Price said this week that the repeal of ObamaCare’s individual mandate would drive up costs (Source: “Tom Price: ObamaCare mandate repeal will drive up costs,” The Hill, May 1, 2018).

Price told the World Health Care Congress, according to The Washington Times, that “There are many, and I’m one of them, who believes that (removing the individual mandate) actually will harm the pool in the exchange market, because you’ll likely have individuals who are younger and healthier not participating in that market, and consequently, that drives up the cost for other folks within that market.”

The Congressional Budget Office has projected that repeal of the mandate will increase premiums by 10 percent as fewer healthy people sign up to balance out the costs of the sick.