HEALTHCARE/OBAMACARE(ACA): “A growing number of major insurers are seeking premium increases averaging 20% or more for next year on plans sold under the Affordable Care Act, according to rate proposals in more than 10 states that provide the broadest picture so far of the strains on the marketplaces.
As Republicans try to pass a health-care bill to overhaul the ACA, the attention has focused on insurers’ withdrawals from a few states that risk leaving some consumers with no exchange plans next year. But the rate requests by major insurers show stress on the marketplaces stretches beyond those trouble spots.
The biggest ACA-plan insurers in Delaware, Virginia and Maryland are asking for average increases greater than 30% for next year. In Oregon, North Carolina and Maine, the rate proposals from market leaders were around 20% or higher.
The insurers’ proposals reflect continuing struggles under the 2010 health law to enroll enough healthy people to offset the costs of the sick—but also uncertainty at the federal level about the law’s future. Insurers are particularly concerned about the fate of payments that reduce health costs for low-income enrollees, which the Trump administration has threatened to halt, and enforcement of the individual mandate meant to prod young, healthy people to buy insurance.”
-Anna Wilde Mathews and Louise Radnofsky, “Insurers Look to Ramp Up Premiums in Health Law Exchanges” The Wall Street Journal online, June 16, 2017 05:30am