Health insurance rates seem to rise every year, so the fact that eight insurance companies in the Affordable Care Act exchange are raising their rates in Florida really shouldn't be shocking. However, this is the ACA — or, to use the more familiar (and derisive) term, ObamaCare — so people are going to pay attention. Especially since the highest rates will go up 23 percent. (The average increase will be 12.3 percent.)
It's important to note that these projected rate increases would affect only those million or so Floridians who use the exchange to buy insurance; if you receive insurance via your job or other avenues, the increases do not apply. In addition, the Associated Press reports that three insurance companies working through the exchange in Florida are actually lowering their rates, though that would depend on where the insured person lives and how many companies are competing in that area. Reporter Kelli Kennedy writes that insurance companies say the rates "partly reflect an older and sicker population than they'd anticipated."
But Florida CHAIN, the health consumer advocacy organization, blasted the state's Office of Insurance Regulation, saying that the information they released yesterday was misleading. "OIR’s hypothetical scenarios not only fail to shed meaningful light on what is happening with rates overall, they likely don’t apply to more than a handful of real-life consumers."
Naturally Rick Scott pounced on the bad news, saying, "Obamacare is a bad law that just seems to be getting worse.’"
But Democrats say Scott himself is partially responsible for the rate increase.
That's because Scott and the GOP-led Legislature passed a law that essentially prevents the state’s insurance commissioner from regulating health insurance rates. Specifically the law took away the Florida Office of Insurance Regulation's authority to approve, modify or reject rate hikes by health insurance companies.
"If the governor and the Republic-controlled Legislature want someone to blame, they need look no further than the mirror," wrote Florida Democratic Senator Bill Nelson last week in a speech on the House floor and a subsequent Hill newspaper op-ed.
"They refused to accept some $51 billion to expand Medicaid," Nelson continued. "They passed onerous requirements on Obamacare navigators to try to keep them from helping Floridians find and purchase affordable coverage. And they passed the law shackling the insurance regulator on health insurance rates."
In other news…
The majority of HART's board appears to be against changing its governance structure — at least amongst those who wouldn't be a part of a reconfigured Hillsborough County transit agency.
Although it's being undone county by county, not in the state as a whole, Florida's ban on same-sex marriage is on the ropes after yet another judge ruled it unconstitutional.
And if you're having trouble finding parking in the downtown area of Gulfport, relax and park wherever it's legal, now that there's a new service in that Pinellas County town that will pick you up and drop you off free of charge.
This article appears in Jul 31 – Aug 6, 2014.