Obamacare premiums will increase by 23% to 48%. Thing is that
most of those purchasing plans in Illinois are receiving a tax credit…well…those
tax credits are going away as well. Hey…did you think Obamacare was a system
developed to work?
Illinois' Obamacare plans seek big 2017 premium hikes
By Lisa Schencker
Chicago
Tribune
August
2, 2016
Insurers want to crank up the cost of health
insurance premiums by as much as 45 percent for Illinois residents who buy
coverage through the Affordable Care Act's marketplace.
Blue
Cross Blue Shield of Illinois, the most popular insurer on the state's Obamacare
exchange, is proposing increases ranging from 23 percent to 45 percent in
premiums for its individual health-care plans, according to proposed 2017
premiums that were made public Monday. The insurer blamed the sought-after
hikes mainly on changes in the costs of medical services.
Blue Cross Blue
Shield of Illinois said in a statement that the proposed rates are in line with
those in many markets across the country, and the proposed increases don't tell
the whole story.
"No
final decisions have been made regarding our 2017 offerings," according to
the statement. "While some carriers have chosen to exit the market, we are
working toward continuing to provide health insurance options for consumers in
Illinois. However, that must be done in a sustainable way."
Coventry Health
Care of Illinois proposed rate increases as high as 21 percent.
The
Illinois Department of Insurance has until Aug. 23 to review the proposed rates
and potentially try to negotiate them down. Final rates can be lower than the
ones first proposed by insurers, and the proposed increases don't reflect what
consumers will actually pay, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
was quick to caution Monday.
Last
year, average monthly premiums for consumers with HealthCare.gov coverage increased
by $4, to $106 a month "despite headlines suggesting double-digit
increases," HHS spokesman Jonathan Gold said Monday in a statement. About
75 percent of Illinois residents who buy plans on the exchange qualify for
federal tax credits that partially offset the costs of their premiums.
"Consumers
in Illinois will continue to have affordable coverage options in 2017,"
Gold said in the statement. "Today's announcement is just the beginning of
the rates process, and consumers will have the final word when they vote with
their feet during Open Enrollment."
Kathy Waligora,
director of EverThrive Illinois' health reform initiative, said she also
expects many of the rates to be lower than the proposed ones released Monday.
"We
don't put too much stock in the numbers as they stand right now because we know
the [Department of Insurance] is really negotiating the rates up until the last
deadline," she said.
Ultimately
it will be insurers setting the rates that will take effect Jan. 1. Illinois,
unlike a number of other states, doesn't have the power to reject the proposed
rates outright, said Dena Mendelsohn, a staff attorney at Consumers Union, the
advocacy and policy division of Consumer Reports.
Regulators
in some states, such as California, have been very successful negotiating with
insurers to push down proposed rates in the past, she said. That hasn't been
the case everywhere.
"It
doesn't appear to me like the Illinois rate regulator is rigorously reviewing
these rate proposals and advocating for consumers," Mendelsohn said.
Consumer
advocates have also complained that Illinois takes too long to publicly release
its rates, giving advocates less time to review plans and fight proposed
increases. Insurers had to submit their rate plans for Illinois in April,
though they were just released publicly Monday as required by the federal
government.
Other
states make the rate plan proposals public when they are filed, and before
Monday, more than half of the states had disclosed just how much higher
Obamacare premiums could be. Blue Cross Blue Shield of Texas, for example,
proposed an average increase of 53.7 percent.
The
increases aren't a surprise as many insurers have been losing money in the
marketplace, said Katherine Hempstead, a senior adviser at the Robert Wood
Johnson Foundation.
Hempstead
said Illinois regulators tend to be realistic about just how low proposed rates
can go.
"I
don't think the Insurance Department wants to push the carriers off a cliff and
tell them they can't raise their rates and then they're upside down
actuarially," Hempstead said. "You can't sustain a situation where
most carriers lose money."
She
noted, however, that recent news of insurer Cigna's plans to start selling
marketplace plans in the Chicago area is likely good news for consumers. The
additional competition could help hold down prices.
It's at
least one bright spot for Illinois residents on the exchange, who have been
battered by other developments.
Insurer
Land of Lincoln Health stunned 49,000 enrollees with its announcement this
summer that it would shut down Oct. 1, after sustaining heavy financial losses.
And last year, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Illinois decided to discontinue its
broadest PPO plan on the exchange after losing money.
Twitter
@lschencker
Copyright © 2016, Chicago Tribune
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