Blue Cross proposes rate hike of nearly 40 percent on some Obamacare plans

[yallerdawg]

Doesn't this also establish a 40% increase in profit across the board?

Source: al.com, Amy Yurkanin

The proposed rate hikes will affect more than 160,000 people in Alabama who purchase insurance through the federal exchange, or about 5 percent of Blue Cross membership.

Rate increases range from 26 to 41 percent, depending on the type of plan. Proposed increases are lowest for bronze plans, which offer the least amount of coverage, and greatest for the most popular silver plans.

The hefty rate hikes for Blue Cross customers will come on the heels of another increase in 2016 that averaged 28 percent for individual plans. The company lost more than $250 million on marketplace plans from 2014 to 2016, according to Blue Cross executives.

The high costs of individual marketplace customers in Alabama also factored into the departures of UnitedHealth and Humana, according to statements by those companies.

Read it all and a couple thousand comments at:

http://www.al.com/news/index.ssf/2016/08/blue_cross_proposes_rate_hike_1.html#incart_most-readnews

[still_one]

1. If they are going through the federal exchanges, that implies that Alabama did not implement their

own exchanges. I would suspect Alabama also didn't expand Medicaid in their state

40% is too high and indicates price gouging

I thought they could not raise the rates that much

If they fall within certain incomes that cost can be subsidized

If they don't, and the premium exceeds a certain percentage point f their way become they can elect to forgo signing up without penalty

This is why we need both a Democratic Senate and House if we really want to see meaningful healthcare, and this means more progressives being elected

and for those that believe Medicare for all is the answer, depending on the Medicare coverage, supplemental plan etc, it can get costly also

A single payer or public option or even Medicare for all would be the way to go, but it will take time, unless Congress becomes more progressive

[Travis_0004]

2. They lost 250 million

So the 40% hike will likely be accepted since they are loosing money.

If its rejected, they might just stop offering gold plans.

[yallerdawg]

3. Losing money?

According to the article, the ACA portion of BCBS coverage in Alabama is 5%.

I wonder if the ACA had contemplated guaranteeing a profit in every facet of coverage to an incredibly profitable industry at the expense of taxpayers who subsidize the coverage of those who have been denied coverage and now are among the sickest to get coverage?

This is turning into Medicare without the cost controls, and guaranteed ridiculous profit margins for insurance companies and the healthcare industry!

[still_one]

4. Anthem is making very good money. Alabama may be a loss for them, and as you pointed out only 5%

are enrolled in BCBS, and that is the problem, they don't obviously have enough healthy folks enrolled in that plan level to break even or turn a profit in Alabama.

Here is the earnings for BCBS:

http://finance.yahoo.com/quote/ANTM/key-statistics?p=ANTM

The states that fared the worse were those states that campaigned against the ACA, and as a result of that it discouraged enrollments in those states.

As an aside, I also hate what Yahoo did with their finance page. They took a good website, and ruined it.