Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
California Bracing For Hefty Insurance Rate Increases
KQED: Your Obamacare Premiums Are Probably Going Up Next Year. Here’s Why.
California’s Obamacare customers can expect a hefty increase in their monthly health insurance premiums next year. Covered California will announce new 2017 rates Tuesday morning for people who buy their plan through the state marketplace, and experts are predicting that increases will be double or even triple what they were last year. ... Covered California’s proposed budget for 2017, released in May, projected average rate increases of 8 percent. Industry insiders are suggesting the average jump could be even higher. (Dembosky, 7/18)
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Common Ground Healthcare Cooperative Faces A Few Fateful Months
Fifteen of the health insurance cooperatives started with federal dollars through the Affordable Care Act have failed — four of them just this month — saddling taxpayers with an estimated $1.7 billion in bad loans. Common Ground Healthcare Cooperative is one of seven still standing. But the next few months will determine whether Common Ground, which insures about 20,000 in 19 counties in eastern Wisconsin, manages to survive. (Boulton, 7/18)
Albuquerque (N.M.) Journal: More ACA Health Co-Ops Close, But NM’s Is Safe
Martin Hickey, CEO of New Mexico Health Connections says the cooperative here is on sound financial footing with over $63 million in reserves. The co-op’s membership has doubled over 2015 and is showing a slight first-quarter profit. Nevertheless, Hickey said the Albuquerque-based nonprofit insurance cooperative is seeking sharp increases in its individual rates next year because it will have to pay a “risk adjustment bill” of $14.6 million to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services for 2015. (Sinovic, 7/18)
Morning Consult: Members Of Closing Oregon Co-Op Can Apply Costs Paid This Year To New Plans
Members of Oregon Health, one of the health insurance co-ops that recently announced it would close its doors, will be able to get credit for money they’ve put toward deductibles and out-of-pocket maximums, the state announced Monday. Customers who had purchased individual plans through the insurer will need to purchase plans from new carriers that will be effective by Aug. 1, the state’s Department of consumer and Business Services announced Monday. (McIntire, 7/18)
