$700 Monthly Insurance Hikes Push Some Wisconsin Retirees Back To Work

Hospital waiting area. (Public Domain) Price hikes under the Affordable Care Act are forcing Grafton resident Kristin Schlingman and her husband to ask themselves hard questions. The monthly cost of their health insurance plans are set to jump as much as $700 per month next year — to $2,800 per month. “My husband, he’s 60. I’m 61. He’s officially retired at this point,” Schlingman told WPR. “We just started to think: does one of us need to go get a job that will provide group health insurance so that we don’t have to pay this extra $35,000 a year out of our pocket?” Wisconsin’s individual market rates will rise about 22 percent on average, according to the state insurance commissioner. An analysis from KFF, a health policy research organization, projects ACA monthly premiums nationally to increase by 13 percent in 2027 before subsidies, with the average marketplace bronze plan for a 40-year-old rising to $511 per month. It marks the second year in a row consumers are set to see double-