For Full-Pay Customers, 2019 Health Bills Look Awful

The company notes that the average age of first-week individual major medical purchasers has increased to 46, from 40 last year, and that first-week customers purchased more mid-level silver plans, and fewer bare-bones bronze plans, than they purchased during the first week of the open enrollment period for 2018.

The company also found signs of pressure in the short-term medical insurance.

The average monthly premium for short-term medical insurance fell slightly, to $110, from $111, but the average individual short-term medical deductible increased 10%, to $5,680.

Every ACA-compliant individual major medical policy has to provide unlimited annual and lifetime benefits for covered "essential health benefits."

Short-term medical policies can provide different levels of benefits.

Aside from the deductible figure, the eHealth activity report does not include any information about the value of the benefits included in the short-term medical policies sold, either for this year or for the comparable year-earlier period.

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