Thursday, June 19, 2014

WSJ: Health insurance premiums to rise and fall

Are health insurance rates rising? Is the Afforadable Care Act responsible? The Wall Street Journal reported:

Hundreds of thousands of consumers nationwide who bought insurance plans under the Affordable Care Act will face a choice this fall: swallow higher premiums to stay in their plan, or save money by switching.

That is the picture emerging from proposed 2015 insurance rates in the 10 states that have completed their filings, which stretch from Rhode Island to Washington state. In all but one of them, the largest health insurer in the state is proposing to increase premiums between 8.5% and 22.8% for next year, according to a Wall Street Journal review of the filings. That percentage represents the average rate increases for all individual health plans offered by that carrier.

At the same time, insurers with the smallest enrollments are proposing to cut rates so they can lure customers as the cheapest plans in their markets.

The rate proposals reflect a combination of big carriers stepping back from initial aggressive pricing, rising medical costs and increased competition during the second year of President Barack Obama's health law. Indeed, several insurers plan to enter new states next year after sitting out some markets in the law's first year. United HealthCare, for example, is going into Connecticut, Michigan, Rhode Island and Washington for 2015....

In all 10 states with complete public rate filings, the insurers with the largest enrollment in 2014 also offered the lowest or second-lowest prices for coverage in the first year of the law's new online insurance exchanges.

With dominant market share now, analysts say, carriers feel they have room to raise rates. Nine of the carriers are proposing average increases for 2015 that range from 8.5% by Anthem Inc. in Virginia to 22.8% from CareFirst for its BlueChoice plans in Maryland. Most of these large carriers' proposed rate increases hover around 10%. Maine's carrier is keeping rates flat.

In Oregon, Moda Health Plan Inc. said it captured about three-quarters of the state's plans sold under the health law for a total of 117,000 enrollees. It has sought a 12.5% increase for next year, citing rising medical costs and the expectation that it will receive less money from a fund designed to offset the cost of sick enrollees.....

At least two Oregon plans are looking to undercut Moda by lowering their rates for next year. Oregon's Health CO-OP, a nonprofit start-up that enrolled fewer than 1,000 people in the first main enrollment period in 2014, is seeking to slash rates by 21%....

Meanwhile, in Connecticut, Indiana, Maryland, Michigan, Oregon, Rhode Island and Washington, insurers that had low enrollments in 2014 or are newly joining the market for 2015 are now bidding to become the least-expensive option for consumers who want to buy silver plans for 2015.

The proposed increases by large carriers partly reflect medical inflation, which is currently projected at around 5.4% for insured people this year, said Richard Evans, an analyst at SSR Health LLC, an investment-research firm in Montclair, N.J. Those increases will outpace gains in household income, making it probable that consumers will feel them, he said.

It is difficult to determine precisely what impact the Affordable Care Act has had on insurance premiums. Insurance companies say fees and coverage mandates in the law have forced them to raise their rates.... Rest of article

13 comments:

Johnny Wier said...

Prices go UP and your paycheck stays the SAME. This is not News.

Alexander Hamilton said...

Since the ACA is mandated healthcare insurance it seems there would be pressure on statehouses to regulate insurance. If we regulate public utilities why would we not do likewise with insurance where a monopoly exists? The idea exists that insurance should be offered across state lines and that the localized market should be destroyed by statehouses. The healthcare market will have churn and companies will find that is a high cost too.

Anonymous said...

My Obamacare policy is saving me $100 per month, now its going go up?

I know it was too good to be true.

Of course you never know with insurance until you file a claim!

Anonymous said...

My Obamacare policy is a Godsend for me. Because of a pre-existing condition and 60+ age, I have been taken to the cleaners each month for the past five years with a wallet-breaking premium of almost $1000 for a very comprehensive healthcare plan with a $1000 deductible. Since I enrolled in Obamacare, my premium dropped to $650 a month with a $250 deductible for a PLATINUM plan that now includes dental! Nuff said!

Anonymous said...

@ 12:12 pm,

It seems cheap because tax payers are footing more than 3/4 of the cost of your policy:

"Gov't pays 76 percent of premium under health law - June 18, 2014":

http://money.msn.com/business-news/article.aspx?feed=AP&date=20140618&id=17709566

Anonymous said...

And just a couple of weeks ago Thad Cochran said that Obamacare is "an example of an important effort by the federal government to help make health care available, accessible and affordable. I'm glad to be involved in that effort. " If this doesn't make people realize that Cochran has to go, nothing will.

Anonymous said...

The comments under the Cochran veteran commercial have been removed so I’ll repost here.

Thanks for your service.

Being a veteran has absolutely no effect on whether I vote to return you to congress or not.

You have continuously voted for things I do not agree with and voted against things I agree with.

I will be voting against you, Mr. Cochran. While you may shake hands here and promise the world, your votes are the only things that count.

Perhaps the liberal Repubs and dems will vote for you, but I will not. I'm voting McDaniel.

And Obamacare, with the website hacks stealing all the info, the doctors and specialty hospitals/services not included, the hikes in premiums, the must-have-it-or-IRS-will-come-after-you, the cancer patients who have spoken out about being denied coverage and their doctors, well, thanks Cochran for funding that.

Anonymous said...

Thanks to all of the new coverage requirements, my health insurance through my employer is now 30% of take home pay. We just got the notice of premium hikes last week.

Thirty percent. It's a house note and then some. I wandered over healthcare.gov and was promptly told my family doesn't qualify for subsidies and the premium there was even higher. They wanted $1700/mo for a shittier plan with fewer providers.

Please explain to me, Senator Cochran, why Obamacare is so wonderful and why I must pay for maternity coverage (when we are not having more kids) in exchange for getting my birth control for free. I'd much rather save that roughly $500/mo in maternity coverage and pay $9 for the pill.

Better yet, why does my 68 year old mother need to buy maternity coverage? It is physically impossible for her to have kids. Who is she covering? Because it damn sure isn't herself.

Anonymous said...

9:23 pm those questions should be asked of the Mississippi Insurance Commission and our State legislators.

Insurance varies wildly from state to state based on how consumer oriented and good at negotiations their commissions have been.

While the article mentions increases, it doesn't list the average costs in the states prior to Obamacare. This article is about increases after year 1 when these providers offered the lowest rates to get people to sign up.

The insurance company " winners" are trying to game the new system.

And, do remember MS didn't want to participate. That's why you're being hit for an even larger increase than those listed above.

You didn't want to play so now you pay.

Anonymous said...

And you can believe 7:46 AM if you
-have been in a coma for over a year or
-have no internet connection to see the tremendous amount of coverage concerning the horrors of Obamacare (loosing current policies, doctors and hospitals no longer available, costs and deductibles out the roof, etc.)

And keep in mind, the employee mandate involving employer plans hasn't even hit yet. Obama pushed that deadline back to after the elections.

Anonymous said...

The USA has a healthcare sector that gobbles up 18% of the economy. The costs on the sector are mostly related businesses including insurance, drug research, antiquated delivery of care, and other inefficiencies. Other simplified systems in Europe or elsewhere have as good health benchmarks but spend much less. The problem is not government subsidized insurance. Its the many hangers on to the supply chain and inability to shake up the professional or bizness guilds that feed on the sick.

Anonymous said...

That's cute, 7:46. And wrong.

Our state insurance commissioner was considered a national expert on the exchanges. Had a plan ready to go. The Obama admin said thanks for shopping and put us on the federal site.

Your turn.

Anonymous said...

As I recall, Chaney's plan for a state exchange was denied by the feds because Gov. Bryant opposed having a state exchange and undercut Chaney on the issue.



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