COMMENTARY Health Care Reform

Health Care Choices and Premiums: What’s Going on in Massachusetts

Jul 18, 2018 1 min read

Domestic Policy Studies

Over the first three years of Obamacare, per capita monthly premiums in Massachusetts decreased by 13%, from $442 in 2013 to $384 in 2016. Massachusetts had insurance market regulations similar to Obamacare in effect before Obamacare was enacted.
Over the first five years of Obamacare, 13% fewer insurers offered Exchange coverage in Massachusetts, from 8 in 2013 to 7 in 2018.
2019 Rate Request: In Massachusetts,Blue Cross and Blue Shield asks for rate increases of 4.2 percent to 5.6 percent for its plans. Harvard Pilgrim Health Care asks to increase rates for its Exchange plans by 4.3 to 5.6 percent and by 5.95 percent for its off-Exchange plans.Boston Medical Center proposes a 3 percent rate reduction for one of its plans and rate increases of 2 percent to 9.2 percent for its other plans.Health New Englandoffers numerous plans and proposes rate changes ranging froma 3.14 percent reduction to a 8.32 percent increase.Tufts proposes small rate adjustments for its plans, ranging from a 1.8 percent reduction to a 2.46 percent increase. In contrast, Fallon proposes to raise rates by 13.3 percent for one plan while reducing rates by 24 percent and 34.3 percent for its other two plans. Two other insurers sell individual market coverage only off-Exchange in Massachusetts. One of them, United, proposes to reduct the rates for its plans by 4.7 and 6.24 percent, while the other,ConnectiCare, asks for rate increases of 3.15 and 4.32 percent for its plans.
2019 Rate Finalized: Finalized by mid-October

Health care remains a major focus of the public discussion as premium prices rise and choices dwindle. Throughout the summer and into the fall, Obamacare insurers will announce decisions about the prices they want to charge and plans they want to offer next year, submitting them to regulators for review and approval. Research shows prices have been rising steadily since Obamacare was first implemented, more than doubling in some places because of its failed policies and regulations.

The best way to provide relief for Americans struggling under these heavy burdens is to replace Obamacare with free-market solutions that put patients and doctors—not federal bureaucrats—in charge of health care decisions and dollars.

The three states that have begun to provide this kind of relief – after being granted federal waivers from Obamacare - are seeing rate reductions. Congress should go farther and make it easy for states to take these actions.