Rising Premiums Rankle People Paying Full Price For Health Insurance
VIRGINIA ANDERSON
Shela Bryan, 63, has been comparing prices for individual health insurance plans since May, and she can’t believe what she has been seeing.
“They cost a thousand, $1,200 [a month], and they have a deductible of $6,000,” she said. “I don’t know how they think anyone can afford that.”
Bryan, who lives in Hull, Ga., a hamlet of about 200, was on her husband’s insurance plan for decades. When he died in 2013, she continued his workplace coverage throughCOBRA, but she had to pay almost the full price of the insurance, or about $800 a month. But it was “the Cadillac of insurance,” Bryan said, with low copays, prescription drug coverage and a $500 deductible.
That option will run out in a few months, so she is turning to the individual insurance market in what is shaping up to be the most expensive year for the 400,000 or so consumers in Georgia who buy their own policies but don’t purchase them on the health law’s marketplaces.
About 10 million Americans buy individual insurance coverage without cost-reducing federal subsidies on the marketplaces on the open market, according to the Congressional Budget Office.
In Georgia, consumers who don’t get insurance through their employers or don’t qualify for tax credits to help pay for policies they purchase are facing double-digit premium increases. Blue Cross Blue Shield of Georgia, the only insurer offering plans throughout the state, received an increase of more than 21 percent from the state insurance commissioner. Humana was awarded a 67.5 percent hike.
Prices are going up in other states, too. BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee was granted a 62 percent rate hike, while state officials approved a 46 percent increase for Cigna. Florida authorities gave plans there an average 19 percent bump. And last week, Minnesota officials announced that premiums for the seven insurers on the individual market are rising 50 to 67 percent.
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Enlarge this image Shela Bryan, 63, has been comparing prices for individual health insurance plans since May, and she…www.npr.org
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