doral, fla.<u+2014>sharp premium increases for coverage under the affordable care act are giving republican candidates from the top of the ticket down a shared cudgel in the home stretch of the campaign. in recent weeks, many state regulators have been publishing steep increases from market leaders for insurance sold through healthcare.gov, which offers plans for people in three dozen states who don<u+2019>t have coverage through an employer or government program such as medicare. but a government report on monday confirmed a 25% average increase in rates for plans sold across the site, handing critics of the law a firm figure<u+2014>from the obama administration itself<u+2014>on which to rally their opposition. <u+201c>obamacare is just blowing up,<u+201d> said gop presidential nominee donald trump at a campaign event in florida , where he also claimed the obama administration<u+2019>s average figure was a low estimate and that <u+201c>you<u+2019>re talking about 60, 70, 80 percent increases.<u+201d> the issue offers gop candidates up and down the ticket something on which they can unify in the final two weeks of an unusually fractious campaign. in arizona, sen. john mccain <u+2019>s re-election campaign said that the obama administration had <u+201c>finally admitted that premiums are set to skyrocket next year<u+201d> and that <u+201c>arizonans are among those in the nation hit hardest by obamacare.<u+201d> his opponent, democratic rep. ann kirkpatrick, voted for the 2010 law. sen. marco rubio, fighting a re-election bid in florida, said that <u+201c>a law that leads to 25 percent premium increases just as its namesake is leaving office is unsalvageable.<u+201d> democrats including president barack obama and presidential nominee hillary clinton have defended the law by saying problems are temporary and can be solved with relatively minor changes , but that the law should be preserved for the good things it has done rather than scrapped. <u+201c>we think the choice in the election is are you going to repeal the affordable care act and kick 20 million people off of insurance, go back to putting the health insurers in control of whether or not pre-existing conditions are covered, or are you going to improve upon it?<u+201d> said jennifer palmieri, a spokeswoman for mrs. clinton, on tuesday. mr. obama has said that corporate decisions are behind cost increases for people who get their plans through their job, as opposed to people who go to healthcare.gov and other state exchanges to purchase coverage under the affordable care act. <u+201c>some people may say, <u+2018>well, i<u+2019>ve seen my copays go up<u+2019> or <u+2018>my networks have changed.<u+2019> but these are decisions that are made by your employers. it<u+2019>s not because of obamacare. they<u+2019>re not determined by the affordable care act,<u+201d> the president said at an event in miami last week. the complexity of the law can make it difficult to fashion an easy political message, a reality made clear tuesday when mr. trump suggested his own employees had been directly affected and had to reverse himself later in the morning. with about 200 employees from three of mr. trump<u+2019>s south florida properties standing behind him on tuesday, the republican nominee had said that <u+201c>all of my employees are having a tremendous problem with obamacare.<u+201d> <u+201c>you folks, this is another group. is that a correct statement? i mean you look at what they<u+2019>re going through. what they<u+2019>re going through with their health care is horrible because of obamacare. so we<u+2019>ll repeal it and replace it.<u+201d> david feder, trump doral<u+2019>s general manager, said after mr. trump<u+2019>s event that the resort provides health insurance coverage to nearly all of the resort<u+2019>s 1,200 employees. <u+201c>there really isn<u+2019>t a need for the vast majority of our employees to purchase obamacare,<u+201d> mr. feder said. <u+201c>i wouldn<u+2019>t say he<u+2019>s incorrect,<u+201d> mr. feder continued. <u+201c>i would tell you that the only employees i know who may purchase obamacare are typically part-timers.<u+201d> laura meckler contributed to this article. write to louise radnofsky at louise.radnofsky@wsj.com and reid j. epstein at reid.epstein@wsj.com
gop candidates seize on premium increases in affordable care act - wsj
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