Minnesota small-business association reacts to insurance industry’s request
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Mike Hickey, Minnesota State Director, [email protected]
or Tony Malandra, Senior Media Manager, [email protected]
ST. PAUL, Minn., June 19, 2018—If Minnesota’s Department of Commerce grants health insurers’ request, premiums will go up yet again for those in the state’s small-group market, according to preliminary rates released by insurers Friday.
“This would make several years in a row that premiums have gone up far beyond what annual U.S. medical care inflation is running,” said Mike Hickey, Minnesota state director for NFIB, today. “Each year that we receive this type of an increase, more employers will drop coverage and send employees to the individual health insurance market.”
Friday’s unwelcome news was proposed rate increases between 3 percent to 12 percent, which is far in excess of U.S. medical care inflation which ran 1.8 percent last year. While the small-group market continues its upward spiral, Hickey was encouraged by the premium declines and stability occurring in the individual market.
“In the individual health-care market, the preliminary proposed rates range from a 7 percent to a 12 percent reduction, clearly showing that the reinsurance law enacted in 2017 has succeeded in stabilizing this market and also providing significant decreases for some,” said Hickey. NFIB supported the reinsurance law that was enacted out of necessity as the Minnesota market was near collapse with individuals receiving whooping increases ranging from 50 percent to 67 percent.
“The clear cause for this long-term problem in the group market are the negative provisions in Obamacare that have increased the price of insurance year after year. The only answer is for the logjam to break in Washington and for Obamacare to be repealed and replaced with a new law that will restore the type of flexibility employers had in Minnesota, and many other states, prior to its passage.”
Needing repeal, according to Hickey, are the essential-benefit and community-rating provisions in Obamacare, which would provide tremendous savings for many small employers who tend to have younger healthier workforce’s.
“There is tremendous frustration among small-business owners that Washington cannot act on a positive revision or replacement of Obamacare and fix this huge insurance problem Minnesota and the rest of the nation faces,” said Hickey
Follow NFIB Minnesota on Twitter @NFIB_MN and on its webpage, www.nfib.com/minnesota.
###
For more than 75 years, NFIB has been advocating on behalf of America’s small and independent business owners, both in Washington, D.C., and in all 50 state capitals. NFIB is nonprofit, nonpartisan, and member-driven. Since our founding in 1943, NFIB has been exclusively dedicated to small and independent businesses and remains so today. For more information, please visit nfib.com.
National Federation of Independent Business/Minnesota
380 Jackson St.
Suite 780
St. Paul, MN 55101
651-293-1283
www.nfib.com/minnesota
Twitter: @NFIB_MN
