April 13, 2014
Beginning this week, when health insurance companies begin reporting their first quarter earnings, consumers and investors will begin to know whether — and possibly how much — premiums will rise in 2015 for plans sold on marketplaces under the Affordable Care Act.
Although health insurers are still tallying their new enrollment from last-minute signups to the plans they offered on government-run exchanges for this year, the Obama administration and state insurance directors are already asking for rates for next year, insurers tell Forbes. Consumers will begin to sign up for plans in the next open enrollment period that begins in November.
Health plans are in a bit of a bind. Insurance company executives tell Forbes they are asking for rate hikes they won’t yet disclose because they don’t yet know the mix of patients they are signing up for this year, complicating the rate picture for 2015.
If insurers get more young and healthy patients, it’s less likely rates will go up much. But they are still unsure about the makeup of health plan subscribers because the Obama administration allowed more than 400,000 people to sign up after the March 31 signup deadline in part because technical issues prevented consumers from completing enrollment applications on time.
There was also a general rush of more than 2 million Americans signing up for coverage in the last two weeks, many of them procrastinators who merely waited until the final month of the six-month open enrollment period that ended March 31.
U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius said last week that more than 7.5 million people signed up for private coverage via state or federally run marketplaces under the Affordable Care Act. And she projected the number to rise.
“We expect that to continue to grow,” Sebelius said last week.
The first major health insurance company to report first-quarter earnings is UnitedHealth Group UNH -2.14% (UNH), which reports its results Thursday.
UnitedHealth only offered plans on exchanges in a few markets so it’s not nearly the barometer that Wellpoint (WLP) or Humana HUM -0.82% (HUM) will be when they report their first quarter earnings later this month.
Wellpoint, which owns and operates Blue Cross and Blue Shield plans, is scheduled to report its earnings April 30, according to the company. Meanwhile, Humana reports earnings the first week in May.
Other players to report are Aetna AET -1.58% (AET), which reports first quarter earnings on April 24 and Cigna (CI) which reports on May 1.
Source: Forbes
http://www.forbes.com/sites/brucejapsen/2014/04/13/obamacare-2015-rate-hikes-may-soon-come-into-view/?CFID=642306&CFTOKEN=ba86e031e5556f26-31D4B823-7054-D27B-4A6918BE88BFB466