WASHINGTON, March 22 (UPI) — Insurers are telling brokers some healthcare premiums will rise in 2014 even though U.S. officials project lower rates overall under the Affordable Care Act.
The Department of Health and Human Services has projected lower premiums, along with an increase in the number of people with health insurance in the individual market — from 15 million in 2011 to 35 million by 2016.
The cost estimates are based on a 2009 report by the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office, The Wall Street Journal reported Friday.
HHS says several factors, including competition among insurers, should help push premiums lower.
Some insurance companies have a different message.
They say rates will go up for many when major features of the healthcare reform law take effect in 2014, the newspaper said.
John Lacy, vice president of group benefits at the Clearwater, Fla., broker Bouchard Insurance, told the Journal insurers are advising brokers to “brace our clients” in advance of higher premiums.
UnitedHealth Group has said some rates for small businesses could rise 50 percent while rates for individuals could rise 116 percent, the Journal reported. Aetna Inc. told its national broker advisory council last fall rates for some individual plans would rise 55 percent on average while premiums for small businesses would increase 29 percent. Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina told insurance brokers last week premiums on individual plans could rise 50 percent.
The ACA provides federal subsidies for lower-income people but those numbers are not reflected in insurers’ projections on premiums, the newspaper said. Some consumers and businesses can expect lower premiums under the law, analysts say.
Insurance companies are expected to file proposed prices with regulators within the next few months, the Journal said.
Copyright 2013 United Press International, Inc. (UPI).
We have to pay for ObamaCare somehow…
How interesting. Not one word on WHY these rates have to go up. Could it be because there is no reason? Could it be because they’re insurance companies, run by corporations in bed with the repubs? Could that be it?
@sicka-come on. You know better than that. It is on every news channel and even CBS and ABC have had reports on the rising cost. You can not cover millions of people that did not have insurance at a reduced cost and not have someone pay for it. This year it is the company’s with group plans seeing the increase, next year it will be the people who but their insurance privately that will see it. Hospitals are already starting to cut back and will be doing more. You can not take millions from Medicare and not affect the hospitals.
What are you talking about? What does rising health care costs have to do with insurance companies raising their rates?
Since you’re such a fan of television networks, I guess you’ve heard that health insurance companies are basking in record breaking profits, too.
Even the Wall Street Journal called their profits “excessive”. The health insurance industry is helping bankroll the repubs effort to repeal the health care bill, and raising rates on customers is one way to keep the public screaming.
Health insurance and health care costs are two entirely different things.
Nobody has taken anything from medicare – yet – but if the repubs have their way, it will end medicare as we know it.
You clearly do not have a clue what this issue is about.
@sicka-I have heard about insurance company’s making record profits and so what? They are still raising rates and getting away with it. Medicare taking a hit is a done deal because they needed that money to fund medicaid. Take away from people who paid and give it to those who don’t. Maybe you need to watch some network news instead of making up stuff to suit what you think. Or better yet, go ti those left wing sites so you can copy and paste some left wing bull crap like you like to do. Everytime someone confronts you on a issue you resort to name calling. Maybe they need to end medicare as it is and come up with a better program. Obamacare is not the answer. Even some of the Dems are starting to see that. You are the one who is brainwashed and clueless.
It’s going to get worse. Next year, Obamacare is going to start charging a fee to the insurance companies for the right to sell insurance. It will go slowly rise to 3.5% by 2016. It is disguised as a “fee” but it’s really a tax and it will be passed on to the insured in premium hikes. So tighten your belts. Between that and the taxes charged to companies that make durable medical goods and brand-name drugs, it’s no wonder medical costs have gone up.
Oh, LVS. I really wish you’d stop responding to anything I say. Everything you post is a compilation of lies, childish names and complete ignorance of any given subject.
As you can tell from the responses you get from others, people generally just put up with you, but nobody really wants to engage you in conversation.
Here’s my take on it:
Insurance companies are “punishing” the consumer for the passage of Obamacare, hoping we’ll all vote Republican in the next election so Obamacare will be repealed.
We all know insurance companies are ultra-conservative (I used to work for one) and they’re doing their best to blame everything on Obama. My premiums are subsidized by the company I retired from. I’ve been retired for three years and my premiums have gone from $260 a month the first year, to $400 a month the second year, and now $565 a month. This is in THREE years’ time! How can they justify this?
Hold on, because insurance companies will keep doing their best to convince us that we voted for the wrong guy. It’s shameful, and it shouldn’t be allowed, but big money will always rule.
Are you kidding, I got scared and wanted a war on terror and spent $100,000, everyone did. We borrowed it and now I’m supposed to be afraid of premium increases? I already spent the farm and got nothing in return. If I’m willing to waste money like that, pinching pennies isn’t going to help.
Here it comes. When you get your premium notice just remember you voted for them.