Illinois residents who buy health insurance through the Affordable Care Act exchange could see prices rise by double digits next year.
Ten Illinois insurers selling plans on the exchange are proposing on healthcare.gov to raise the average rate of plans for 2023 from about 3% to nearly 16%. Consumers will be able to purchase next year’s healthcare.gov plan from November 1st. ..
The state’s largest health insurance companies, Blue Cross and Blue Shield in Illinois, are proposing an average rate hike of 5.3%. Celtic Insurance Co., which sells a plan called Ambetter, is proposing an average rate hike of 13.7%. The United Healthcare of Illinois offers an average rate hike of nearly 16%.
Nearly 230,000 Illinois residents have individualized health insurance reform plans through the Blue Cross. According to a document submitted by the insurer along with the proposal, a rate change from Celtic / Ambetter could affect about 54,000 people and United Healthcare could affect about 5,500 people.
More than 320,000 Illinois residents purchased health insurance in exchange for 2022. Most people in Illinois have health insurance through work and government programs such as Medicaid and Medicare.
Prices may vary based on several factors. For example, this year, a 21-year-old nonsmoker in Cook County pays about $ 242 a month for the lowest-priced Silver Plan before subsidies.
Blue Cross, Celtic and UnitedHealthcare, in a document submitted with the proposal at healthcare.gov, blamed the proposed increase for rising health care costs, among other factors. The proposal may be finalized within the next few months.
Bluecross, Celtic and UnitedHealth Care did not respond to requests for comment on Monday.
Stephanie Becker, Deputy Director of Healthcare Justice at the Chicago-based Schreiber Poverty Law Center, said Illinois consumers will see federal subsidies help keep health insurance costs down next year. He said it should be kept. Still, she said she was concerned about any increase.
“(Prices) are all rising right now, so the last thing Illinois families need is a surge in health insurance costs again,” Becker said. “It is very important that both federal and state representatives do whatever they can to keep these costs down.”
Price increases follow years of price cuts and arise in uncertainty about the future of federal subsidies that will help consumers offset the cost of insurance purchased through the Affordable Care Act.
Many have long been subsidized to reduce the monthly cost of insurance purchased through the Affordable Care Act. According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, in Illinois, 85% of people who purchased plans through exchanges in 2020 also received subsidies.
During the 2021 pandemic, President Joe Biden signed a bill that would make these subsidies more generous to many and increase the number of people covered by them.
Currently, these enhanced grants will expire later this year and return to their previous parameters. After going back and forth many times, Senator Joe Manchin III of West Virginia D-West Virginia recently agreed to a law aimed at combating climate change.
Proponents of enhanced subsidies are afraid that many consumers may withdraw their health insurance coverage if the subsidy runs out.
If the enhanced subsidies are not extended, those who earn more than four times the federal poverty level are no longer eligible for subsidies.
So, for example, in Illinois, a 40-year-old who buys a silver-level plan on an exchange and earns $ 51,521 a year could increase his premium by about 15%, according to Kaiser family analysis. Foundation.
