North Carolina's largest health insurer puts a price tag on ongoing uncertainty
Source: CNBC
North Carolina's largest health insurer is warning its Obamacare members that it may have to hike rates more than 20 percent for the second year in a row, and the reason has everything to do with mixed messages from Washington over subsidy funding.
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More than two-thirds of its 500,000 Obamacare customers rely on CSRs to help with out-of-pocket costs. Insurers on the exchange make the payments upfront — an estimated $7 billion this year — and up until now the federal government has reimbursed them.
If CSRs are funded next year, Blue Cross NC said it will only need to raise rates by 8.8 percent: 5.8 percent for rising medical costs, and 3 percent for the health insurance industry tax.
But if the Trump administration pulls the plug, the insurer said it will need to increase rates by an additional 14.1 percent, for a total 22.9 percent rate hikes.
Read more: http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/north-carolinas-largest-health-insurer-puts-a-price-tag-on-ongoing-uncertainty/ar-BBBH9Iw?li=BBnb7KB&ocid=UE01DHP
The Trump administration has been trying to sabotage health care exchanges while cheering the chaos they cause as evidence of a death spiral. Unfortunately, rather than call out the Trump administration, Democrats have been implicitly agreeing with Republicans that the ACA is in a death spiral by abandoning it and pushing single payer. It is confusing messaging at best that is not going to pave the way to the loss of health care coverage for millions of Americans.
Democrats should push for an expansion of the ACA, as well as a public option, rather than pushing for a repeal of it as well in favor of single payer.
