Missouri and Kansas can expect double-digit Obamacare premium hikes again

Kansas Citians who buy health insurance through healthcare.gov can expect to pay much more for monthly premiums next year.

According to preliminary rate filings submitted to state insurance regulators in Missouri and Kansas, every insurance company selling individual plans in the region through the Affordable Care Act marketplace wants to raise prices in 2027.

Across both states, average premium increase requests range from 10% to 35% more than 2026 rates. And that follows a similar trend last year, when almost every carrier offering plans in the Kansas City area requested an increase.

The companies argue that health services and medications continue to cost more, while the volume of patient claims is rising. Both factors increase the insurance companies' costs and eat away at profits, justifying a price hike, they said.

Nationally, a Peterson-KFF analysis found, individual marketplace insurers are requesting a median premium increase next year of 15%. Last year, the same analysis found the median national increase request was 18%, and it climbed to 20% once rates were finalized.

The combined two-year upswing is significant for people who rely on the government marketplace for health insurance. The KFF analysis notes that if regulators grant the 2027 premium requests, typical premiums on the marketplace will have jumped by more than one- third in two years.

Lacey Kennett of Alliance for a Healthy Kansas, a nonprofit that advocates for affordable healthcare, said the premium increases represent one on a long list of healthcare expenses people are having trouble affording.

At an Aug. 2 event put on by One Nation Overcharged, a national coalition working to raise awareness about health costs, Kennett said she heard from people who are putting off routine doctors' visits and skipping medications in order to save money.

"Putting off care, waiting until it becomes more like an emergency, … then, of course, it's even more expensive," Kennett said. "Our goal is to make so much noise about the rising cost of healthcare that policymakers can't ignore it anymore."

Missouri and Kansas regulators are reviewing the ACA rate request filings to determine if the increases are justified and to ensure the plans comply with state and federal law.

States must publish insurance carriers' premium increase requests along with justifications for them and give the public a chance to submit comments in response. In Kansas, people can submit comments with the insurance department. And in Missouri, people can go to the insurance department's website to find more information about how to submit feedback.

The deadline for public comments in Missouri is Aug. 31. Final rates are expected by Oct. 31.

While fewer than one in 10 people buy insurance through the marketplace, according to the KFF report, the rate requests provide a window into how the industry is navigating the market, which could be a clue about how they may approach next year's rates in other insurance sectors.

Last fall, many private employers struggled to afford the growing health insurance costs they were facing for 2026. And the situation is likely to be similar when it comes time to renew policies.

Missouri and Kansas' small group markets, which sell insurance to businesses with between two and 50 employees, also project premium increases in 2027 of between 9% and 19%, according to state filings.

The largest premium increase request came from UnitedHealthcare in Kansas' individual marketplace. The company, which reported profits of $12.8 billion last year, has asked the state for rates to jump between 29.68% and 36.48%.

In its filing with the state justifying the premium increase request, the company pointed to rising costs in U.S. healthcare spending. UnitedHealthcare said that in 2025 its "loss ratio," the percentage of total premiums that go toward paying medical claims, was 95.85% on its Kansas individual plans. That is well over the loss ratio of 80%-85% required under the Affordable Care Act.

UnitedHealthcare's Kansas filing listed specific healthcare trends driving up costs, including:

In addition, the company pointed to the growing trend of healthier patients dropping out of the marketplace, leaving a more expensive patient pool behind, something other insurance carriers also called out as a reason for increasing 2027 premiums.

People dropping ACA coverage has become increasingly common since the end of last year, when federal lawmakers allowed enhanced premium tax credits, which subsidized ACA plans for a larger portion of the population, to expire.

By February, Missouri had already seen a 25% decline in ACA enrollment, to 260,999 from 347,424 a year earlier. In Kansas, enrollment had dropped about 20% to 143,880 from 179,920 a year earlier. Without the federal subsidies, many experts expect the departure of healthy people from the marketplace to continue, a trend insurers are anticipating as a reason to increase premiums for remaining policyholders.

On the Missouri side, the Oscar Insurance Co. also listed healthier patients leaving the market as one justification for its 15.9% increase in rates next year.

"Changes to the overall premium level are needed because of anticipated changes in the underlying health of the marketplace," the company wrote.

[This article first appeared on Beacon: Kansas City and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.]