Source: Covered California Announces Double-Digit Rate Increases | California County NewsThe state’s two largest insurers, Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield, will increase their rates even further by 17 percent and 20 percent respectively. Some regions will see even higher premium increases. The steepest rise (28.6 percent) will hit the counties of Monterey, San Benito and Santa Cruz, where limited competition has driven health care costs up even further. Northeast Los Angeles County will see an average uptick of 16.4 percent. San Francisco’s rates are expected to rise by an average of 14.8 percent.
Source: Insider Louisville: Closing Bell for Aug. 5 | Local News - WLKY HomeIn most of the 15 cases before the department this year, the state set rates at or below the hikes requested by insurance companies. For example, Humana Health Plan Inc. requested that it be allowed to increase insurance rates for individuals in Kentucky by 33.7 percent; the DoI approved an increase of 31 percent. Aetna Health Plan Inc. wanted an increase of 7.6 percent; it got approval for 5.6 percent.
However, Baptist Health Plan Inc. requested a rate increase of 26.68 percent, yet the DoI approved a hike of 27.9 percent. And CareSource Kentucky Co. sought an increase of 20.55 percent — and received one of 29.3 percent.
Insurance Commissioner H. Brian Maynard told IL via email that in those cases, the department determined, based on actuarial review, that the request “would be inadequate to meet each company’s obligations to pay claims.”
Source: https://www.bostonglobe.com/busines...age-percent/sHRgbzo98ztwhkA81y8IdM/story.htmlThe state also announced new rates for 2017 for individuals who sign up for health plans. Those rates are slated to rise 6.7 percent on average across 16 plans, affecting an estimated 268,000 people. Rates for Harvard Pilgrim customers will rise 15 percent, and for Neighborhood Health Plan members nearly 19 percent.
Source: Vt. Health Insurer Wins Rate BoostThe board disregarded much of the testimony from its own actuaries, which largely agreed with Blue Cross’ request to raise prices 8.2 percent.
Source: Maine Bureau of Insurance approves double-digit ACA rate increases - The Portland Press Herald / Maine Sunday TelegramThe bureau gave the OK to a 25.5 percent increase for customers of Community Health Options, 21.1 percent for Harvard Pilgrim and 18 percent for Anthem. Most of the increases will be offset by subsidies for those who qualify for government assistance.
“I do worry that the rate increases will be a hardship for people making just over the 400 percent,” said Emily Brostek, executive director of Consumers for Affordable Health Care, an Augusta-based health advocacy group. “If they were just barely able to make their payment now, they may not be able to afford it next year.”
A fourth insurer, Aetna, had filed paperwork to join the Maine marketplace, but withdrew last week. Aetna will, however, offer off-marketplace individual plans in Maine in 2017.
Source: Tennessee approves costly health exchange price hikes for state's biggest insurers | Times Free PressBlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee, the state's biggest health insurer, will raise individual rates by 62 percent in 2017. Their small group rates will rise by only 6.5 percent, however.
Cigna got state approval to raise its individual rates for its ObamaCare plans by 46.3 percent, while Humana got the OK for a 44.3 percent jump in premiums for individual plans next year.
Aetna doesn't offer marketplace plans, but its other individual health plans will see a 14.1 percent jump in premiums in 2017. Aetna's rates for small employer groups will rise only 1.6 percent.
State regulators approved a 17.3 percent increase in individual rates for Freedom Life and a 33.86 percent increase in individual rates for TRH Health.
Holy crap, 62% for BCBS in TN?? And other biggies get 40%+?? How the hell do regulators justify allowing this? Oh yeah, I remember who runs the place now - same anti-consumer regulators we have here in GA.
What an outrage.
An interesting setup we've created. The insurer's books need to show an 80% payout to HC providers (to avoid having to refund money to policyholders). But there's no true mechanism to hold down the cost of the care, since the (fewer and fewer remaining) insurers just get higher rates approved by regulators. After all--if they get to keep 20% of the total, then the bigger the total gets, the more money they make. Reducing healthcare costs will ultimately hurt, not help, their bottom line.The saving grace is that if the premium increase is overbaked as you seem to think and they don't pay out 80% of what they collect in premiums in claims then they will need to provide insureds with a refund.
There's no reason markets can't work for this service, but it is different from some other services. There are several routes to go that would make it work, but, from where we are right now, the easiest approach is to provide consumers with high-quality data on quality of care available through various insurers/networks. The government is in the best position to gather that data. Not just general data, but highly specific information based on types of care.There will never be competitive markets for insurance, hospitals, doctors, drugs.
Playing whack-a-mole with one issue after another isn't going to get the job done. And price caps/controls will only assure scarcity (as they always do). We need to address the fundamental issues that cause the problems.It's probably going to take a lot of pain and more scandals like Epipen before people make politicians pay for inaction.
Ford doesn't "agree" to allow GM into the marketplace.There's no economic incentive for them to agree to more competition in their business.
These increases are high, and for sure will cause some hardship in Georgia. Still, when we look at the average cost of healthcare insurance in the US, some of these premiums are below average and can increase even more.I stand by my post above, these are beyond the pale increases that hopefully will result in rebates as pb4uski mentioned above.
I tried to tell you not to move here...
+1Yes, but you mentioned heat and scorpions and chiggers and all that stuff. Not insurance!
Here is a list of 2017 insurers in each FL county. http://www.floir.com/sitedocuments/IndividualMarketPlanDistributionbyCounty.pdf(snip) The only large insurer not present is UHC. Humana, Aetna and Cigna continue - not a surprise given that Florida is the nation's largest individual health care market with more than 2M QHPs in 2016. We don't know if they will cover the entire state or just the more populous counties (probably the latter).
Here is a list of 2017 insurers in each FL county. http://www.floir.com/sitedocuments/IndividualMarketPlanDistributionbyCounty.pdf
Harken has announced they will only sell off-exchange plans in Georgia and Chicago in 2017.For sure Harken was underpriced this year, they are a new entrant trying to buy market share. Not surprising to see that increase given all the other data we've seen.
Harken will not offer individual plans through Obamacare exchanges in Georgia and Chicago in 2017, the company said Thursday in an e-mailed statement. It will continue to offer individual plans off the exchange, Harken said.
Harken has canceled its plans to enter the Florida marketplace for 2017.
Reference: Harken Exits Obamacare Markets as UnitedHealth Startup Struggles - Bloomberg
Harken has announced they will only sell off-exchange plans in Georgia and Chicago in 2017.