Obamacare Costs Skyrocket, But Few Cries for Repeal in Senate Races

The steep increases expected to Obamacare in 2017 should provide a crease that incumbent Republican senators could wedge wide open, especially considering the states most affected, Politico reports.

Nine of 11 key battleground states where Senate races are tight has at least one insurer seeking rate hikes of at least 30 percent, according to Politico.

But to date, overall spending on Obamacare ads is down significantly. The shouts of repealing Obamacare coming from Republicans have been scant for two main reasons:

1. Most Americans on the plans will be unaffected by the rate increases.
2. Repealing Obamacare would take away health insurance for some 20 million Americans.

Pennsylvania Sen. Pat Toomey "just wants to slash and burn our system just like Donald Trump, even though he knows it would kick millions of Americans off of their health insurance plans," the spokesman of Toomey's Democratic challenger, Katie McGinty, told Politico.

Toomey must weigh that vs. one insurer in Pennsylvania seeking to increase premiums by 40 percent.

Another state expected to get hit hard with increase is Wisconsin, where three insurers are pursuing premium hikes of at least 30 percent, Politico reports.

Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson, considered one of the most endangered Republican incumbents, has called the Affordable Care Act a "massive consumer fraud and it's harming real people."

Obamacare "is a sleeper issue that Ron Johnson could use," Wisconsin Republican strategist Brian Fraley told Politico. "It's one of the few issues that you can contrast with and the effects are here."

• Trump Puts Toomey's Re-election in a Bind
• State Officials: We May Have to Increase Obamacare Premiums