Did any of you actually read the study done by the KSF linked in the article? Or did you just read the article? If you read the study, you would know why the average is only -0.8% for the silver plans (which it's hilarious that we count -0.8 as fantastic). The study suffers from sampling bias. Only Denver, Rhode Island, and Seattle saw significant decreases in the silver plans. On top of that the bronze plans, which are cheapest and come with high deductibles and co-insurance, were pretty much up across the board (except in Denver, Hartford, Portland, and Seattle). Even after the tax credits the premiums were still higher.
The only real benefit we see here is that apparently Denver and Seattle are doing things right, and the rest of the country is not. This doesn't measure the failure or success of the ACA at this point, not even close.
At this point, this is what we know about Healthcare in the US:
1. Medicare and Medicaid covers something like 100 million people (1/3 of the country)
2. 9 million people are now insured with subsidized insurance (if you qualify) under the ACA, roughly 31 million still uninsured
3. Health care costs are expected to rise this next year due to the higher demand (if it doesn't increase dramatically - that's only because some of the government spending has decreased - which means overall healthcare spending is still way too high)
4. ACA doesn't do shit to decrease healthcare expenses
5. Businesses are shifting higher deductibles and costs to employees
Great day to be in America.