Six insurance
carriers in Maryland have proposed rate increases for individual health plans
in 2017. We encourage you to share how this would impact you, your business, and your employees before the comment period ends on June 15th. CLICK HERE to make comments
State Director, Mike O’Halloran, recently spoke to 47
ABC News Hour about the rate increases saying, “We want
to make sure that policy-makers, the ones that approve the decision to increase
premiums, are hearing directly from the people that will be affected…the
rate-payers, the mom-and-pop shops, and the employees.” He warned that
an increase in premium rates would crush small businesses and make employers
reluctant to hire.
A public hearing for the proposed rates is scheduled for July 6th in Baltimore.
Proposed rate changes (individual):
• CareFirst BlueChoice Inc. – a 12.4 percent increase;
•
CareFirst of Maryland Inc. and Group Hospitalization and Medical
Services Inc. (GHMSI) (both CareFirst companies) – a 16 percent increase
each;
• Cigna Health and Life Insurance Co. – a 29.8 percent increase;
• Evergreen Health Cooperative – an 8.1 percent increase; and
• Kaiser Foundation Health Plan of the Mid-Atlantic States – a 25 percent increase
Proposed rate changes (employer groups):
• Aetna Health Insurance Inc. – a 5.0 percent increase;
• Aetna Life Insurance Inc. – a 5.0 percent increase;
• CareFirst BlueChoice Inc. – a 3.9 percent increase;
• CareFirst of Maryland Inc. and GHMSI- a 7.4 percent increase;
• Evergreen Health Cooperative – a 3.7 percent increase;
• Kaiser Foundation Health Plan of the Mid-Atlantic States Inc. – a .3 percent increase;
• MAMSI Life and Health Insurance Co. (a UnitedHealthCare company) – a 0.1 percent reduction;
• United Healthcare Insurance Co. – a 0.1 percent reduction;
• UnitedHealthcare of the Mid-Atlantic – a 5.7 percent increase; and
• Optimum Choice (a UnitedHealthCare company) – a 0.1 percent reduction