"State insurance officials say they are feeling pressure to approve large ObamaCare premium increases to prevent more insurers losing money from dropping out of the market altogether.
Tennessee’s insurance commissioner, Julie Mix McPeak, this week announced the approval of premium hikes of 62 percent, 46 percent and 44 percent, respectively, for the three insurers on the state’s marketplace.
"She said her department’s actuaries had found the rate increases to be justified.
“I didn't feel like I had any choice but to approve those rates when it came back to be actuarially justified,” she said.
Tennessee is unlikely to be alone in authorizing premium hikes, either. In Maryland, officials are expecting a hike.
“There are going to be significant increases in the individual market,” said Al Redmer, the insurance commissioner in Maryland, where the rates are still being reviewed.
It is unclear how many other states may allow large premium hikes.
An early estimate from ObamaCare analyst Charles Gaba finds that for nine states the average approved premium increase for next year is 27.6 percent." - State officials under pressure to OK ObamaCare premium hikes, thehill.com, 08/26/2016
Link to the entire article appears below:
http://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/293386-state-officials-under-pressure-to-approve-obamacare-premium-hikes
“Blue Cross Blue Shield of Alabama is seeking an average rate increase of 39 percent on individual plans offered through the Obamacare marketplace, according to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.
The proposed rate hikes will affect more than 160,000 people in Alabama who purchase insurance through the federal exchange, or about 5 percent of Blue Cross membership.
Rate increases range from 26 to 41 percent, depending on the type of plan. Proposed increases are lowest for bronze plans, which offer the least amount of coverage, and greatest for the most popular silver plans.
Blue Cross is the only insurance company that will offer Alabamians individual insurance plans through the exchange next year after the departure of Humana and UnitedHealth. Those departures were announced earlier this year.
The hefty rate hikes for Blue Cross customers will come on the heels of another increase in 2016 that averaged 28 percent for individual plans. The company lost more than $250 million on marketplace plans from 2014 to 2016, according to Blue Cross executives.
The high costs of individual marketplace customers in Alabama also factored into the departures of UnitedHealth and Humana, according to statements by those companies.” - Blue Cross proposes rate hike of nearly 40 percent on some Obamacare plans, al.com, 08/08/2016
The entire article appears in the link below:
http://www.al.com/news/index.ssf/2016/08/blue_cross_proposes_rate_hike_1.html
“Amid reports that consumers could be hit with Obamacare health insurance premium hikes of 10 percent or more, the administration is providing state insurance regulators with $22 million to encourage them to beef up their reviews of requests for rate hikes from the health insurance industry.
The decision announced on Wednesday to provide states with additional resources to evaluate and challenge rate increases, in addition to undertaking other activities related to Obamacare, appears to be as much a political maneuver as another attempt to bend the health care cost curve.
A new Kaiser Family Foundation analysis of Obamacare insurance markets in roughly a third of major metropolitan areas projects that premiums on the most popular silver plans will increase by an average of 10 percent to 11 percent next year, twice the rate of increase approved last fall. And that doesn’t include almost certain increases in co-payments or other out-of-pocket costs to consumers.
Obama administration officials reportedly are wary of the political impact of a rash of double-digit premium increases so close to the election, despite warnings from major insurance providers they will need higher revenues in order to remain in Obamacare. Millions of Americans are likely to get their first notice of Obamacare premium rate increases for 2017 shortly before the November election.” - White House Is Spending Millions to Battle Obamacare Rate Hikes, thefiscaltimes.com, 06/17/2016
Link to the entire article appears below:
http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/2016/06/17/White-House-Spending-Millions-Battle-Obamacare-Rate-Hikes
