Quote:Is Obamacare sinking in Texas? Or just facing more growing pains?

Health care spending nationwide will hit a new high this year, rising 4.8 percent, the government said this week. For over 1 million Texans who buy insurance on Healthcare.Gov, they can only dream about having it so good.

Blue Cross Blue Shield of Texas, which has about half the state’s exchange customers, wants to increase premiums almost 60 percent for 2017. Scott and White Health Plan wants to ratchet up premiums over 30 percent, and Cigna, 24 percent. Aetna and Oscar are planning double-digit increases, too.

UnitedHealth, the country’s largest insurer, is pulling out of the exchange business in Texas and over a dozen other states.

Many consumers already feel squeezed by the cost of insurance, along with high deductibles and co-pays. In Texas, 85 percent of exchange customers get federal subsidies to offset premiums and federal officials say shopping around usually uncovers an affordable plan. But subsidies won’t necessarily keep pace with increases at Blue Cross and Scott and White, whose final prices will probably be announced this fall.

This week, a young woman with two children called to discuss dropping the family’s Blue Cross plan for a few months, said broker Bob Garrison of Insurance Connection USA in Denton. She and her husband pay about $1,300 a month and can’t face more sticker shock, he said.

“When your health insurance is bigger than the mortgage, something’s wrong,” Garrison said.

It’s not working for Blue Cross, either.

In justifying its rate increase to state regulators, the company said it paid $1.26 in claims for every $1 in premiums collected last year. For the state’s largest insurer, that resulted in a loss of $770 million in the individual marketplace. And Blue Cross is projecting another loss this year for its exchange business.

To some, this is further evidence that the Affordable Care Act is unsustainable. Higher premiums are likely to drive away potential enrollees, especially healthier people, and that could lead to a downward spiral.

“Pretty soon, health insurance on the exchange will be a good deal only for the very sick,” said Devon Herrick, senior fellow at the National Center for Policy Analysis in Dallas. “More healthy folks will drop out and pay the fine. That appears to be happening in Texas.”