InsuranceCovered California rates to increase
Premiums for health insurance plans sold through the state marketplace will increase an average of 6% next year, Covered California officials announced today.
This rate hike is the largest
Rate changes vary by region — from an 11.7% increase in
When premiums increase, an individual’s financial aid usually does, too. Aid is based on household income, so subsidies may offset some of the increase. But people who don’t qualify for subsidies will bear the full cost of the rate hike.
“Premiums are a capturing of what health care costs are, how
they vary across geographies and communities, how health care costs are growing over time, which we know in this country are already too high and rising,” said
She noted that California’s rate hike is still lower than it is in other states. A recent
The rate increase, Altman said, is largely attributed to people resuming doctor visits and procedures that they postponed during peaks of the COVID-19 pandemic. There is also the cost of general inflation.
About 1 percent of the increase, however, is attributed to the potential loss of enhanced subsidies from the federal government, which are set to expire at the end of this year. Without the additional aid, people will pay more for their premiums, likely pushing young, healthy people to drop their coverage. And when healthy people leave the marketplace, premiums go up for everyone.
The federal government’s American Rescue Plan last year provided
Currently 1.7 million Californians buy their coverage through the state marketplace. Covered
“(The rate increase) for the subsidized population is almost divorced from what they pay out of pocket. What’s more important is what happens with the (American Rescue Plan) subsidies,” said
Altman said the sooner
“There have been references both ways — ‘Will it be permanent? Will it be temporary? Will it stay in the current form?…Or will there be some adjustments to it?’ — and we really don’t know,” Altman said about the conversations happening in
California’s 2022-23 budget includes
Covered
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