The bad news is beginning to roll in for health insurance consumers as companies request rate increases in states across the country. Most of those rates will be set by October 1 - the official date for the start of Obamacare open enrollment. But even looking a rate increaes in 2015 could give indigestion to Hillary Clinton  and her supporters. Linda J. Blumberg, John Holahan, and Erik Wengle at the Robert Woods Johnson Foundation and Urban Institute made a careful study of premium increases in all 50 states in 2015. They found that trying to gauge increases in the aggregate was useless because of different market conditions. Instead, they concluded the focus should be on "understanding the wide variability by identifying the characteristics of markets that have experienced high premiums or high growth in premiums and of markets with lower premiums or lower growth in premiums." AoL News: Only five states saw a decrease in premium cost this year, while 12...(Read Full Post)