Average Obamacare premiums will be lower than projected

Just days before new online health insurance markets are set to open, the Obama administration Wednesday released a look at average premiums, saying rates in most states are lower than earlier projected -- and that 95 percent of consumers will have at least two insurers to choose from. The report – released the same day that President Barack Obama and former President Bill Clinton touted the law's benefits -- comes as part of a stepped-up administration effort to explain and defend the health law as congressional Republicans target it for defunding. Until today's report, little information was available about insurance rates in most of the 36 states whose online marketplaces will be overseen entirely or partially by the federal government because state leaders opted out of running their own.