People who signed up for coverage under President Barack Obama's health care law are paying about $80 a month in premiums on average, the administration reported Wednesday. The new numbers from the Health and Human Services Department cover only the 36 states where the federal government took the lead in setting up new insurance markets, accounting for about 5.4 million of the 8 million people who signed up nationally. Major states like California and New York were not included, but that may not affect national averages by much. The law limits what people pay for a benchmark plan to a fixed share of their income, regardless of where they live.
