Health insurance costs break through earth orbit
4:13 pm February 15, 2010, by ctucker
From Associated Press:
Consumers in at least 4 states who purchase their own health insurance are getting hit with premium increases of 15% or more — and people in different states could see the same thing.

Anthem Blue Cross, a WellPoint Inc. subsidiary, has been hounded for a week by regulators and politicians for notifying some of its 800,000 policyholders in California that it plans to raise rates by up to 39% March 1.
The Anthem Blue Cross plan in Maine is asking for an additional 23% rate hike this year for some individual policy holders. Last year, they raised rates up to 32%.

And in Oregon, several insurers were given rate hikes of 15% or more this year after increases of around 25% last year for customers who bought individual health insurance, rather than receiving it through their employer.
Premiums are far more unstable for individual policies than for those purchased by employers and other large groups, which have bargaining influence and a sizable pool of consumers among which to spread risk. As more people have lost their jobs, many who are healthy have decided forego health insurance or get a bare-bones, high-deductible policy, reducing the amount of premiums insurers get.

High rate increase in this sliver of the insurance market — about 13m Americans, as of 2008 — have popped up randomly for years. Some experts see them becoming increasingly common.
Sandy Praeger, the chairwoman of the health insurance and managed care committee for the National Association of Insurance Commissioners, predicted Friday, “You’re going to see rate increases of 20%, 25%, 30%” for individual health policies in the near future, (h/t, Karen Tumulty, Swampland)

VIA blogs.ajc.com

Keyword: Health insurance

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