We're In Your Corner
A Message from your Healthcare Advocate
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IMMEDIATE RELEASE -
Contact: Ted Doolittle, State of Connecticut Healthcare Advocate
Email: healthcare.advocate@ct.gov
Phone: 1-866-466-4446
INSURANCE RATE HIKE DECISION PORTENDS BROKEN REVIEW AND ACCOUNTABILITY
There is bad news for consumers and small businesses. The Connecticut Insurance Department has approved health insurance rate increases averaging 5.6 percent for the individual market and 6.7 percent for the small group market. In approving the increases, the department reduced rates requested by insurers by 35 percent for the individual market and by 48 percent for the small group market.
The fact that the Insurance Department had to make big cuts to some of the requested rates does not inspire confidence that the carriers have all the tools they need to hold down medical costs. The carriers are right that high medical prices are driving premium hikes. But that just leads to the question of why the carriers are not able to negotiate better prices. Specific high-cost healthcare providers like hospitals and drug makers in future years should be summoned to the rate hearings to justify the prices they are demanding. Justifying these underlying medical prices in public is especially urgent in our new high-deductible world, where most consumers have to pay all of their own non-routine medical expenses, at whatever price is negotiated by their insurance companies.
Even with the cuts, the approved requests are high. For instance, it is hard to see why UnitedHealth Group’s Oxford plans need rate hikes of 10 percent, or nearly three times some of their competitors. If Oxford is having trouble negotiating fair rates with its healthcare providers, this is something that the public and state policymakers need to know about. If our insurers are not able to negotiate fair, sustainable medical prices, this is something state regulators or the legislature can help with.
We pay more than twice as much for healthcare as all other wealthy countries, and the difference is that our overseas economic competitors have some kind of periodic public-private partnership process where healthcare providers and drug makers are required to justify their prices. Insurers in Connecticut need the same kind of public-private partnership to give them the negotiating muscle that they need. The annual rate hearing process is a perfect place for Connecticut to catch up to the rest of the world, and provide the support our insurance companies need to hold powerful high-cost providers like hospitals and drug makers accountable for the high prices they are demanding.
Here is a link to what the insurance industry was asking for their initial rate hikes:
https://portal.ct.gov/-/media/CID/1_RateFilings/2022-Initial-Rate-Filings-Chart.pdf
Ted Doolittle
Healthcare Advocate, State of Connecticut
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The mission of the Office of the Healthcare Advocate (OHA) is to assist consumers with healthcare issues through the establishment of effective outreach programs and the development of communications related to consumer rights and responsibilities as members of healthcare plans. OHA focuses on assisting consumers in making informed decisions when selecting a health plan; assisting consumers to resolve problems with their health insurance plans and tracking trends of issues/problems, which may require administrative or legislative intervention, or advocacy with industry, the public, or other stakeholders
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