BUDGET/HEALTHCARE/OBAMACARE(ACA): “A deadline for insurers to file 2018 prices for health insurance sold through Affordable Care Act exchanges arrives Tuesday [9-5-17], but state regulators are still struggling to make decisions about pricing and coverage amid uncertainty in federal health policy.
The upshot is confusion in what is typically an orderly, regimented regulatory process for reviewing insurance offerings that will go on sale to consumers on Nov. 1.
States are taking different approaches, based on their best guesses about what Congress and President Donald Trump’s administration might do regarding the health-law marketplaces, though several state regulators said in interviews that they are leaning toward approving hefty rate increases.
According to actuarial firm Milliman Inc., at least 32 states have requested that insurers prepare alternative premiums for different scenarios, Most of those states are still holding off on a final decision on which rates to choose…
Insurer Anthem Inc. has said it would stop offering exchange plans under Obamacare, as the law is known, in Maine next year if the federal government stops payments known as cost-sharing reduction subsidies.
Those payments, which Mr. Trump, a Republican, has threatened to halt, reimburse insurers for money they advance to reduce health-care costs for low-income ACA enrollees.
A White House spokesman said the president ‘is working with his staff and his cabinet to consider the issues raised by’ these payments. Anthem, which has already announced retreats from several exchanges, declined to comment.”
-Anna Wilde Mathews, “Deadline Looms for Insurers to File Rate Proposals,” The Wall Street Journal online, Sept. 4, 2017 09:00am