Tag: Insurers

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Sticker Shock : Insurers are looking for Obamacare price hikes

obamacare_theridgewood blog
 Contributors s Note : We predicted it. We know it was all a lie and of course Dr. Gruber boasted and called the American people “Stupid”. 

“Obamacare plan customers should brace for sticker shock when the administration posts insurers’ preliminary rate requests for 2017 this week.
Health plans are asking for sharp price increases, after suffering big losses on exchanges in the last two years. Regulators caution that these are preliminary requests and final rates could a lot different.

Insurers cite rising drug costs and patients who utilize a lot of medical services for the price-hike requests, which range from 17 percent in New York, and more than 20 percent in Virginia, to 30 percent rate increase requests from Oregon’s largest insurers ”  Joe Killian

 

Bertha Coombs | @BerthaCoombs

Obamacare plan customers should brace for sticker shock when the administration posts insurers’ preliminary rate requests for 2017 this week.

Health plans are asking for sharp price increases, after suffering big losses on exchanges in the last two years. Regulators caution that these are preliminary requests and final rates could a lot different.

Insurers cite rising drug costs and patients who utilize a lot of medical services for the price-hike requests, which range from 17 percent in New York, and more than 20 percent in Virginia, to 30 percent rate increase requests from Oregon’s largest insurers.

https://www.cnbc.com/2016/05/23/insurers-are-looking-for-obamacare-price-hikes.html?__source=msn%7Cmoney%7Cheadline%7Cstory%7C&par=msn

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Health-Law Tax-Credit Payments to Insurers Questioned

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“The Obama administration said last year that about 85% of enrollees received the subsidy and got an average tax credit of $270 a month.”

The only reason people were willing to buy the overpriced, poor value insurance, was that taxpayers were footing a major portion of the bill. How could our lawmakers have devised such an awful scheme, and then call it “health-care reform?”
A new automated system on the way should alleviate potential problems identified by federal oversight agency

By
STEPHANIE ARMOUR
Jan. 6, 2016 12:00 a.m. ET

The Obama administration wasn’t able to ensure that all tax-credit payments made to insurers under the health law in 2014 were on behalf of consumers who had paid their premiums, according to a federal oversight agency.

However, the agency noted the Obama administration this year is moving to a new automated system that should alleviate potential problems identified in its investigation. The Health and Human Services’ Office of Inspector General is scheduled to release the report Wednesday.

The findings raise questions about the oversight of tax-credit payments that went to insurers on behalf of consumers who qualified for financial assistance.

Tax credits are a major enticement to low- and moderate-income people who buy insurance on exchanges under the Affordable Care Act because they lower monthly premium costs. After consumers sign up for coverage, they can choose to have the federal government distribute the tax-credit payments to insurers to lower their premiums. Nearly $11 billion in tax credits were paid to insurers in fiscal 2014, according to a report by the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration.

The Obama administration said last year that about 85% of enrollees received the subsidy and got an average tax credit of $270 a month.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/health-law-tax-credit-payments-to-insurers-questioned-1452056400

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Insurers eye ObamaCare hikes

obamacare_theridgewood blog

Insurers eye ObamaCare hikes

By Sarah Ferris – 06/01/15 05:19 PM EDT

Health insurers across the country are eyeing slightly steeper cost increases in 2016, a year that will be an important test for how well ObamaCare is working.

The costs of the lowest-tiered individual plans appear to be ticking up, according to multiple experts who have reviewed the proposed rates. The increases vary wildly among plans and among states, but experts say people are still unlikely to face the kind of doomsday scenario critics predicted would occur under the healthcare law.

“The trend is a little bit higher this year than last year,” said Gary Claxton, director of the healthcare marketplace program for the Kaiser Family Foundation.

And as in past years, some of those rate increases have been “enormous,” said Cheryl Fish-Parcham, who directs the private insurance program at the nonprofit Families USA.

Under ObamaCare, all proposed rate hikes above 10 percent were required to be posted online by Monday. Now begins a six-month back-and-forth between insurance companies and regulators as the government tries to reduce rates before locking them in this November.

“These specific rates will be subject to vigorous rate review and revision,” said Andy Slavitt, the acting administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS).

The proposed 2016 rates will offer the most accurate portrait so far about the health of the marketplaces. Claxton, who reviewed several states’ data, said many of the increases are around 15 to 20 percent, though there are large disparities across regions.

Tennessee’s biggest insurer has proposed an increase of 36 percent for some plans, while one of New Mexico’s biggest carriers is looking at a 50 percent increase. The most popular carrier in Maryland has called for a 30 percent hike.

https://thehill.com/business-a-lobbying/243654-insurers-eye-obamacare-price-hikes

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Health Care Law Recasts Insurers as Obama Allies

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Health Care Law Recasts Insurers as Obama Allies

By ROBERT PEARNOV. 17, 2014

WASHINGTON — As Americans shop in the health insurance marketplace for a second year, President Obama is depending more than ever on the insurance companies that five years ago he accused of padding profits and canceling coverage for the sick.

Those same insurers have long viewed government as an unreliable business partner that imposed taxes, fees and countless regulations and had the power to cut payment rates and cap profit margins.

But since the Affordable Care Act was enacted in 2010, the relationship between the Obama administration and insurers has evolved into a powerful, mutually beneficial partnership that has been a boon to the nation’s largest private health plans and led to a profitable surge in theirMedicaid enrollment.

The insurers in turn have provided crucial support to Mr. Obama in court battles over the health care law, including a case now before the Supreme Court challenging the federal subsidies paid to insurance companies on behalf of low- and moderate-income consumers. Last fall, a unit of one of the nation’s largest insurers, UnitedHealth Group, helped the administration repair the HealthCare.gov website after it crashed in the opening days of enrollment.

https://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/18/us/politics/health-law-turns-obama-and-insurers-into-allies.html