Vermont Business Magazine The Green Mountain Care Board on Thursday announced its decisions on 2016 rate increase requests for health insurance plans offered on Vermont Health Connect (VHC), Vermont’s online health benefit exchange. The GMCB reduced the rate requests and approved a 5.9 percent annual increase for Blue Cross & Blue Shield of Vermont, and a 2.4 percent increase for MVP. The rates were filed by insurers on May 15th and were subject to a 90-day technical analysis and review by the GMCB. The review process included two days of rate hearings open to the public, input from the Office of the Health Care Advocate, and public comment from almost 500 Vermonters.
Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Vermont (BCBSVT), which insures more than 65,000 Vermonters through VHC, requested an 8.6 percent average annual rate increase for its VHC plans beginning January 1, 2016.
MVP Health Plan, Inc. (MVP) insures approximately 6,500 Vermonters through VHC and has requested a 3 percent average annual rate increase.
The insurers cite rising medical and pharmaceutical costs and changes to federal and state law as drivers of the requested rate increases.
The GMCB reduced each proposed rate increase, approving a 5.9 percent annual increase for BCBSVT, and a 2.4 percent increase for MVP.
Because these rate increases represent averages across different benefit plans with varying levels of cost sharing, Vermonters enrolled in VHC may see higher or lower increases in their premiums than the rates approved Thursday.
In addition, the GMCB encourages Vermonters to find out if they are eligible for subsidies that will offset the cost of their premiums.
The pro-single payer organization, Healthcare is a Human Right, issued the following statement: “How many of the 65,000 people covered by Blue Cross in Vermont will get a 6% raise next year?” asked Megan Sheehan, co-director of the Vermont Workers’ Center, which coordinates the campaign. “The Green Mountain Care Board is condemning thousands of Vermont residents to increased financial hardship, while with Act 48 we have a clear way forward towards a publicly financed healthcare system that would increase equity and dignity.”
Building off of the mandate set out under Act 48, the Healthcare is a Human Right campaign has proposed an equitable model for publicly financing Vermont’s health care system that would expand access to care while lowering healthcare costs for low- and middle-income families. Under this plan, which was introduced in the 2015 legislative session as H.475, BCBS would be dissolved and its assets turned over to a new public corporation that can operate healthcare as a public good.
“Last year the Board approved a 7.7% rate hike,” said Sheehan. “Unless we move from private, market-based insurance to public financing of universal care, we’re going to face rate hikes like this year after year. It’s time to flip the way we pay for care -- with people contributing based on their ability, so that low- and middle-income people pay a smaller share of their income on health care than the wealthy.”
For more information about how the GMCB reviews health insurance rates and to read the BCBSVT and MVP Vermont Health Connect rate decisions, see the rate review website: http://ratereview.vermont.gov/.
Source: GMCB 8.13.2015