Since no one seems willing to discuss the real reasons why health insurance premiums are rising dramatically since the passage of the PPACA (Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act). Let me break down the top 3 reasons. They are the following:
1.) My Blue Cross Group clients are receiving renewal rate increases of 35.63% this year for the first time in 15 years Your previous premium increases were nowhere near This quantity. This is also not isolated from Blue Cross. These premium increases are occurring in many US markets, both in the individual and group markets. I am simply using Blue Cross as an example, as the name is the most widely recognized. These increases are largely due to the fact that multiple New “Preventive Care” mandates were imposed on all “non-grandfathered” health insurance plans effective 09/23/2010 under PPACA. A “grandfathered” plan is a plan that was purchased after PPACA (also known as “Obamacare”) became law on March 23, 2010. Note that all of these were required to be covered no later than by 1/1/2011 with no copay or deductible required. See list of mandates http://www.healthcare.gov/law/about/provisions/services/lists.html
2.) Multiple new policy design changes have also been mandated. If you have a group health plan, you already received those new mandates.
3.) Now we come to reason number three. The new PPACA mandatory medical loss ratios or “MLR”. This is why health insurance premiums are rising for non-grandparent plans as well. For more information on the new MLR, visit: http://www.heritage.org/Research/Reports/2010/01/Squeezing-out-Private-Health-Plans Who in their right mind thinks of forcing all of the following new mandates in every health insurance policy in the country would actually “bend the cost curve below“?
In fact, mandates are one of the main reasons health insurance premiums have increased exponentially in recent decades. In 1979 there were 252 health mandates in force, by 2007 there were nearly 1,900. With the implementation of PPACA, we have tipped the balance to nearly 2,000 mandates. Keep accumulating them and the costs will continue to rise.