Double-digit hikes in premiums look set to make health insurance even less affordable in Connecticut. But advocates say there will be few quick fixes for the rising cost of health care. On Friday, the Connecticut Insurance Department released the slate of newly approved rates for health insurer’s plans offered in the state for 2017. There’s a wide range of increases but overall the trend is clear: individual plans go up by an average of almost 25 percent, while the hike in premiums for small group plans is around 13 percent.
Despite the hefty overall increases, at least one insurer is so displeased with the decision that it's threatening to quit the state's health care exchange.
ConnectiCare has filed a lawsuit against the state, seeking an injunction to the regulators' decision. The Farmington-based company was requesting a 27.1 percent increase in premiums for plans it offers on Access Health CT. But last week, the Insurance Department approved a hike of 17.4 percent. Now ConnectiCare must decide before this Friday's deadline whether to pull out of the exchange altogether. It’s one of just two insurers still offering individual plans through the system.
“It is infuriating," said Kevin Galvin of the steadily rising cost of insurance. He is a small business owner in Hartford and an advocate for health care reform. "The sole reason I got involved with health care reform was to help me get my people insured, and small businesses like mine.”
Galvin said even now, years after the passage of the Affordable Care Act, he’s still unable to provide health care for his employees because of the sheer cost. At first he encouraged his entry-level employees to seek insurance coverage on the exchange.
But now, he told WNPR, "none of them are on the exchange, and they’re paying the penalty. And they’re back using the emergency departments.” Plans are simply too expensive, and their networks don't provide convenient primary care where his workers can use it.
But even to someone who’s deeply involved in the process, it isn’t clear where to point the finger of blame for the failure of the system. Galvin said there’s little evidence the health insurers are gouging.
“When the insurance department does a rate review and decides on a percentage, that is not an emotional process, that’s an actuarial process," he said. "It isn’t loaded with anything other than data. The insurance department has their faults, but their ability to go through an actuarial process around rate review is not one of them.”
Galvin is glad to see Connecticut’s health insurance exchange once again convening its advisory committees, of which he is a member. Before this fall, they had not met for some 18 months.
While answers may be hard to find, he believes it's time for everyone with expertise to come together to make health care accessible, and decide how problems can be fixed both at the state and federal levels.
