State Insurance Commissioners Between The Proverbial Rock And A Hard Place
Modern Healthcare has a good article reviewing the plight this year of the insurance commissioner. Healthcare costs are spiraling, in part due to utilization and in part higher prices throughout the sector. As well, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) is anything but cheerful for most consumers reliant on the Exchanges. The bill will contract enrollment dramatically. This is leading to greater risk in the program and plan and product exits. The combination of the two have insurers putting in for massive rate hikes in the Exchange program.
Insurance regulators do have a hard task. They need to ensure that insurance rates are affordable and consumers have access to the market. They need to protect against excessive hikes. But they also need to ensure a stable and secure insurance marketplace and that means granting sufficient rate hikes to ensure fiscal soundness.
Pressures, especially political ones, abound right now on insurance regulators as they seek to approve sound yet high rate requests and throw out those that are truly excessive. Regulators do have some history in the Exchanges to look at. Exchanges have had a topsy-turvy history as Democrats sought to expand coverage and Trump 45 and now 47 sought to contract it. All of this led to massive swings in enrollment, plan participation, networks, choice, and premiums over the years.
In related news, the Colorado General Assembly is considering borrowing $100 million from the state’s unclaimed property trust to assist insurance consumers if enhanced exchange subsidies expire at the end of the year.
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#healthplans #margins #rates #exchanges #obamacare #aca
https://www.modernhealthcare.com/politics-regulation/mh-aca-premiums-regulators-oklahoma-colorado/
— Marc S. Ryan
