‘Unacceptably High’: Another State Sees Major Obamacare Rate Hikes

In the latest case of soaring health care rates since the Affordable Care Act was enacted, Minnesotans will pay up to nearly 50 percent more for the health insurance plans they buy on the state’s Obamacare insurance exchange.

The Minnesota Commerce Department said Thursday that Blue Cross and Blue Shield plans purchased on the MNsure – the state’s marketplace – will go up by 49 percent. Other plans will increase by 14 percent to 39 percent for the other four insurance companies in the state exchange, the Star-Tribune reported.

Minnesota Gov. Mark Dayton (D) speaks to members of the media. (Hannah Foslien/Getty Images)

Only about 6 percent of the state’s residents – or 300,000 people – are insured on the marketplace, where they are eligible for tax credits to buy insurance. The Minnesota Commerce Department approved the rate hikes.

“Even though Minnesota rates remain among the nation’s lowest, the rate increases by the insurance companies are unacceptably high,” Minnesota Department of Commerce Commissioner Mike Rothman said, according to WCCO-TV.

Every health insurance company in Minnesota asked for a rate increase of at least 10 percent, the Star-Tribune reported. Blue Cross and Blue Shield asked for an increase in the mid-50s.

“When Blue Cross and Blue Shield filed higher rate increases in the mid-50 percent range, it made all the other insurers want to change and increase their rates, too,” Rothman said. “This effectively tied our hands, in some respects.”

Blue Cross and Blue Shield said in a statement that the hikes will “mitigate” the cost to the company, but added, “Even with these increases, Blue Cross is likely to experience continued significant financial losses through 2016.”

Minnesota Gov. Mark Dayton, a Democrat, said that, if companies make insurance unaffordable, he will demand “that they be removed as the providers of health insurance.”

The state’s Republican House Speaker Kurt Daudt said that, instead of adding another bureaucracy, the state should have joined the federal exchange.

“It’s time now that we take real action, before one or two more years of huge rate increases that Minnesotans can’t afford,” Daudt told reporters Thursday. “The time for action is now.”

MNsure’s interim chief executive, Allison O’Toole, said in a statement that the hikes didn’t reflect so well on the Obamacare law as a whole, not just MNsure.

“The fact of the matter is that today’s news would be the same regardless of whether Minnesotans use MNsure or healthcare.gov,” O’Toole said.