State residents are steadily continuing to sign up for their coverage under the Affordable Care Act. Colorado health insurance enrollment is performing considerably better than it was at this time in 2016. Despite a temporary slow down near the end of November, the Affordable Care Act in the state is still seeing far more registrations than had been the case last year. Even with the slowing, the enrollment pace is still significantly faster than was seen in 2016. According to Colorado health insurance data from November, almost 44,000 state residents…
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State insurance regulators start approving rate hikes to cover Trump’s slashed subsidies
Officials in Maryland have already given their approval to the last minute increases, but others are following. Insurance regulators in many states are starting to look into last minute health plan rate increases to compensate for the elimination of Affordable Care Act subsidies. Michigan officials have warned that they are already looking into the increases that they are likely to approve. At the same time, Maryland insurance regulators have already given their approval to the rate hikes. These increases are a direct response to President Trump’s executive order that eliminated…
Read MoreHealth insurance exchanges have at least one offering in every U.S. county
The Affordable Care Act was previously threatened by possible bare patches in plan availability. Earlier in 2017, it appeared as though the health insurance exchanges in several states would suffer bare counties in the 2018 open enrollment period. That said, the situation has turned around and every county continues to have a minimum of one option available. Though President Trump had claimed that the insurance marketplaces were failing, they appear to be healing. President Trump had been pointing to the problem of counties without plans available through the health insurance…
Read MoreColorado insurance commissioner points finger at Trump administration for massive rate hikes
Marguerite Salazar says that uncertainty generated by the president led to the 27 percent rate hike requests. Colorado Insurance Commissioner Marguerite Salazar’s department received requests for 27 percent rate hikes in the individual market and 7.3 percent for small group. The commissioner is not happy and blames the Trump administration for the uncertainty they’ve created within the market. Salazar said the games played by the Trump administration have caused the health insurance market to become unstable. The result of these actions, said the Colorado insurance commissioner, was huge 2018 rate…
Read MoreAnthem health insurance policies with reduced coverage receive approval
A judge has given the nod to allow the insurer to move forward with a plan offering no out of network care coverage. Anthem health insurance has been allowed to continue selling a California health plan that doesn’t offer out of network care coverage. A judge gave the ruling that stopped Anthem Blue Cross from being restrained from switching half a million Californians to the plan. A consumer group requested that the judge keep a restraining order in place to stop Anthem from making the switches. The restraint would have…
Read MoreAmericans are shopping outside health insurance exchanges for coverage
Millions of people are buying health plans off the marketplaces to avoid massive rate hikes. As premiums are headed skyward at many health insurance exchanges, people are looking for alternatives. Many Americans have decided to stop shopping in those official markets. Instead, they are purchasing health plans through insurance companies off the exchanges. The purpose is to try to avoid being faced with the rate hikes that are often in the double digits. The Obama administration is working to reverse this trend. The goal is to make health insurance exchanges…
Read MoreHealth insurance policies aren’t stopping people from using the ER
Among the predicted benefits of the Affordable Care Act was that people would stop using this last resort care. When the Affordable Care Act went into effect, one of the advantages was supposed to be that health insurance policies would reduce the use of hospital emergency rooms. That said, despite the fact that many millions of people are now covered, they’re still headed to the ER. This is problematic as emergency room medical care is among the most expensive types of health care. The belief was that because people would…
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