Obamacare Consequences: Health Insurance Premiums Going Up In Louisiana And Iowa

What week of stories about Obamacare’s negative consequences would be complete without news of one of Democrats’ core promises about it being proven wrong yet again?

President Obama and Washington Democrats said many times that “This law will lower premiums,” as the president did in 2011. Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL), the second ranking Democrat in the Senate, declared in December 2009, “Bringing down costs of health insurance and making it more affordable is job one for this health care reform.”

Today, The New Orleans Times-Picayune reports, “Some Louisiana health insurers are imposing double-digit increases in 2015 for polices sold under the Affordable Care Act's health exchange, according to filings this week with the Louisiana Department of Insurance. Blue Cross Blue Shield of Louisiana, the state's largest provider, filed papers that it is moving forward with its original plan to increases rates between 18.3 percent and 19.7 percent for policyholders in its Blue Saver, Blue Max and its Multi-State individual health plans. The plans cover 52,638 people. . . . Humana Health Benefits Plan rates under the Affordable Care Act will increase by 9.9 percent . . . . Vantage Health Plan Inc. said it was moving forward with its plan for a 15.89 percent increase.”

The Times-Picayune notes, “Blue Cross Blue Shield of Louisiana said when it first proposed the higher rates in Louisiana that the biggest factor was the high utilization of health services used by subscribers. ‘Right now, at Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Louisiana, we are seeing that more people are accessing more health care services than we expected and our claims are higher than they have been in previous years. We expect this trend will continue,’ the insurer said in documents provided reporters.”

Up the Mississippi River in Iowa, The Des Moines Register reports, “Iowa's insurance commissioner has approved three rate adjustments that will raise health insurance premiums for thousands of Iowans. Commissioner Nick Gerhart said today that he has approved premium increases from Wellmark Blue Cross and Blue Shield, CoOportunity Health and Coventry Health.

“Des Moines-based Wellmark had sought a rate increase of between 11.9 percent and 14.5 percent for about 19,000 of its customers. That increase is for individual policyholders who have Affordable Care Act-compliant plans. The dominant health insurer in Iowa, Wellmark is raising rates on about 250,000 policies. . . .

“CoOportunity had initially requested a rate increase of 14.3 percent. That increase was later revised to 19 percent on average, the commissioner said. Coventry requested an 8.7 percent rate increase on average. CoOportunity and Coventry are the two main companies offering health insurance plans on the federal health care exchange. Wellmark said earlier this year that it will forgo joining the exchange for another year. The three rate increases will go into effect Jan. 1.”

“All three carriers have said they need to raise rates to meet rising health care costs,” The Register points out.

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