It’s good President Obama didn’t add the word “affordable” to his keep-your-plan-if-you-like-your-plan health care pledge, because that would have been disproven, too.
Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Carolina is seeking “an average 34.6 percent higher premium for insurance sold under President Barack Obama’s health insurance overhaul law,” WRAL reports.
That number is revised upward from a previously announced 26% hike to take effect in January. That’s on top of a 13.5% increase this year.
Blue Cross vice president Patrick Getzen says the reasoning for the large proposed rate hike is two-fold:
- The expectation that healthier customers would enroll in the second year has not proven true and
- Costs have not leveled out as anticipated after people who avoided doctors for years got treatment.
“Based on our data, neither expectation is proving true. Our claims and expenses are higher than our premiums and we need to take steps now to protect the sustainability of plans for our customer over the long-term,” Getzen says, according to the news site.
North Carolina regulators are authorized to approve the 34.6% rate hike — the company cannot to it automatically. That has advocates urging the Department of Insurance to “take a hard look” at the big increase.
“There is a question of whether these high rate increases are justified in the short term,” Adam Linker, a health access expert for the North Carolina Justice Center, tells WRAL. “There is a lot of uncertainty nationally with insurance companies but I think that companies have a tendency to ask for higher rates than necessary so that they can sort of pad these losses.”
Linker believes the increases will affect those who don’t qualify for Obamacare subsidies.
According to the news site, “Coventry, a division of Aetna Inc., requested rate increases of between 17.2 percent and 25.8 percent. UnitedHealthcare wants an average 12.5 percent rate increase.”
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