Amid a last-minute, bipartisan push from Congress to stabilize health insurance markets, the two insurance companies offering plans on the Affordable Care Act exchange in Louisiana say they could reduce some rates for 2018 should a deal come to fruition.
But time is in short supply. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has imposed a Sept. 27 deadline for states to submit final plan recommendations. Regulators would have to grant permission to Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Louisiana and Vantage Health Plan, the two insurers offering individual exchange plans in the state, to change their previously-announced rate hikes. Open enrollment for 2018 begins Nov. 1 and runs through Dec. 15.
“We’re extremely close to the deadline where we can go back and start changing stuff,” says Vantage spokesman Billy Justice. “It would need to happen very soon.”
Both Vantage and Blue Cross announced earlier this summer they would raise rates by double digits for those who buy insurance through the ACA exchanges. Vantage raised such rates by upwards of 30%, while Blue Cross increased rates by 18.5%.
The companies said the major driver of the rate increase was uncertainty over cost-sharing reductions, which are designed to help insurance companies offer affordable coverage to low-income people. President Donald Trump’s administration has threatened to stop paying the subsidies. Vantage and Blue Cross also cited a lax enforcement of the individual mandate, the provision of the ACA that requires everybody have insurance.
Medicaid expansion, also a part of the ACA, has had a larger impact on Louisiana’s uninsured than the individual exchanges.
Meanwhile, Sen. Bill Cassidy is among a group of lawmakers still trying to repeal and replace the ACA, commonly known as Obamacare, and Sen. Bernie Sanders is championing a Medicare-for-all system—though neither are likely to pass.
—Sam Karlin
