Tennessee, Louisiana, Delaware Citizens Face Obamacare Rate Increases

Today in Washington, D.C. - July 17, 2014
The House reconvened at 9:00 AM today and moved immediately to consider taking up H.R. 4719 — "To amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to permanently extend and expand the charitable deduction for contributions of food inventory."

No other action expected except for continued discussion over instructing conferees meeting with Senate conferees over H.R. 3230 and the House is expected to adjourn early today after having been in session until 7:12 PM yesterday.

Yesterday the House sent the majority of their time on debate and amendments on H.R. 5016 — "Making appropriations for financial services and general government for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2015, and for other purposes." The bill passed by a vote of 228 - 195.

The Senate reconvened at 9:30 AM today and began consideration of S. 2244, the Terrorism Risk Insurance reauthorization bill.

At noon, the Senate rejected a motion to waive the budget resolution with respect to an amendment offered by Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) by a vote of 47-49. Senators then voted 97-0 to adopt an amendment offered by Sen. Jeff Flake (R-AZ) and agreed to amendments from Sen. David Vitter (R-LA) and Se. Jon Tester (D-MT) by voice vote.

The Senate then voted 93-4 to pass S. 2244.

At 1:45 PM, the Senate began voting on cloture on the nomination of Julie Carnes to be United States Circuit Judge for the Eleventh Circuit.

Yesterday, Democrats failed to get the 60 votes needed to take up their partisan bill that would overturn the Supreme Court’s Hobby Lobby decision and erode religious freedom (S. 2578). The vote was 56-43. It would have forced all employee health plans to include possible abortion-inducing drugs — even if doing so violates business owners’ deeply held religious beliefs.

The Nashville Business Journal features a headline Americans are finding all-too-familiar this summer: “Here come higher premiums: Tennessee's insurance providers request rate increases.” The Chattanooga Times Free Press reports on the details. “BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee — the state's dominant health insurance provider — is asking to raise rates by an average of 19 percent for its exchange plans in 2015, according to documents filed with the state of Tennessee. Meanwhile, Cigna is requesting an average rate increase of 7.5 percent in 2015, while Kentucky-based Humana would like to boost marketplace rates by an average of 14.4 percent. BlueCross has the majority of Marketplace members in Tennessee by far -- 88 percent. ‘We're in a very competitive business, so we don't want to charge any more than is absolutely necessary,’ said BCBST spokesman Roy Vaughn. The requested rate increases, he said, will allow the company to ‘break even’ for its plans on the federal exchange. ‘Based on our claims experience through the first half of this year, we're paying out more than we expected,’ he said. ‘In fact, we're in a loss position that will be in the tens of millions of dollars.’ That loss is due, in part, to the fact that more patients who signed up for health care on the exchange were sicker than insurance companies had expected. They tended to use more health services than the company predicted they would, too.”

Today’s announcement of rate hikes in Tennessee follows news yesterday that “Some Louisiana private health insurers filed for double-digit percentage increases in 2015 for policies sold under the Affordable Care Act's health exchange, according to filings this week with the Louisiana Department of Insurance,” as the New Orleans Times-Picayune wrote. And the AP reported earlier this week, “Delawareans could face higher insurance costs under the Affordable Care Act next year under new rate requests from insurers.”

In recent weeks, reports of premium increases for 2015 have come from New York, Oregon, Iowa, Maryland, Vermont, Washington, and Virginial. Many of these, like in Tennessee and Louisiana are double-digit percentage increases.

This is not what Democrats promised when they passed their unpopular health care law. The president claimed, “Families will save on their premiums,” as he was urging the Senate to pass the bill in 2009. In March the following year, he said, “Your employer, it's estimated, would see premiums fall by as much as 3,000 percent … which means they could give you a raise.” And the Democrats’ Assistant Majority Leader in the Senate, Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL), assured, “Bringing down costs of health insurance and making it more affordable is job one for this health care reform.”

As Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell said, “Obamacare may not have existed in the English language just a few years ago. But in short order, it’s become a byword for broken promises and almost-cartoonish inefficiency. It’s no wonder why: ‘You can keep your plan.’ ‘You can keep your doctor.’ ‘Premiums will go down.’ ‘The law will create millions of jobs.’ We knew the promises wouldn’t hold up. Many of us said so. One even earned the dubious distinction of being declared the ‘Lie of Year.’ . . . . Reality always intervenes, just as we’ve been seeing with the pain of Obamacare these past few years — pain that will only continue until Washington Democrats join with us to enact a serious, bipartisan approach that actually addresses many of our health care challenges and dispenses with the failed policies of this Administration.”

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