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****  Update  Below 12/7/09, 1:05 PM ET  **** 

Weeks before I read the Wall Street Journal article below, I knew that ObamaCare would raise rates for existing health care policy holders and that the impact would happen sooner than later. Several weeks ago, a close personal friend informed me that their Blue Cross Blue Shield health insurance premium had been significantly raised. When this person called the insurance office, they were told it was happening across the board. I then ran into a friend of mine who works for Blue Cross Blue Shield. The friend confirmed the story and stated that their rates had also been increased.

From the Wall Street Journal, December 5, 2009.

“Blue Cross Blue Patients”

“Another day, another study confirming that ObamaCare will increase the price of health insurance. The Blue Cross Blue Shield Association has found that premiums in the individual market will rise on average by 54% over the status quo, which translates into an extra $3,341 a year for families and $1,576 for singles. The White House denounced the report as a “sham” before it was even released, which shows how seriously it takes such concerns.

The Congressional Budget Office also found this week that ObamaCare will boost premiums in the individual market by as much as 13%. But the White House called that a triumph because the higher costs will be offset by taxpayer subsidies that will be transferred to the federal balance sheet.

The Blue Cross study is in fact more precise than CBO’s because it is based on real market data, rather than modeling assumptions. The association mined the actuarial data from its six million individual or small-business policies, nearly one-eighth of those sold in the U.S.”

“”And you can bet as we continue to make progress,” communications director Dan Pfeiffer wrote on the White House blog, “the insurance industry will continue to try and distract and misinform because they know their very profitable status quo is in grave danger.” He must be referring to the industry’s overall profit margin of 2.2% in 2008.”

Read more:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704007804574574170859847850.html

****  Update  ****

I obtained the actual premium increase from my close friend:

Thanks to commenter Patriot Dreamer