As Costs Climb, Maine Insurance Superintendent to Propose Giving Insurers More Latitude on Rates for Individual Policies

Thousands of Maine residents spend "well in excess" of $1,000 a month for individual health insurance policies, and experts maintain that the costs will likely "continue rising sharply" this year, AP/Foster's Daily Democrat reports. According to state Insurance Superintendent Alessandro Iuppa, the rising costs will "push more people to the ranks of the uninsured," leaving a smaller pool of residents to "pick up the soaring costs" of premiums. "The individual market is in a death spiral," Iuppa said, adding, "If we do nothing, realistically in the next three or four years we would have no individual market in the state of Maine." To address the problem, Iuppa said that he plans to propose legislation to allow insurers to have "more latitude in setting rates for different risk pools" and develop pilot programs that offer lower rates for "healthier" enrollees, such as nonsmokers, "as a way to get them back into the individual market." Dan Bernier, an attorney for Maine's independent insurance agents, said that the individual insurance market "has been slowly deteriorating for five years, but in the last 12 to 24 months, it's begun to collapse," adding that a "top-notch individual policy" for a Maine family costs about $13,000 a year, or $1,100 a month -- "a sum many families cannot afford." Within the past five years, the AP/Daily Democrat reports that rates for individual insurance plans have "swelled" between 99% and 167%, costing 35,000 Maine residents up to $1,226 a month for "basic coverage alone." Maine's rate of uninsured residents in 13%, higher than any other New England state (AP/Foster's Daily Democrat, 4/2).