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Insurers may soon lose ACA excuse for their soaring premiums

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Ana Mulero, writing in Healthcare Dive, notes that “2016 was a terrible year for insurance costs. Double-digit ACA premium increases were common. Insurance and provider monopolies and near-monopolies look likely to support future increases. But as we go into 2017, it’s reasonable to ask: How long will consumers put up with this?”

After all, “{T}his comes as some payers, including the five largest ones in the U.S., have remained highly profitable. Aetna, Anthem, Cigna, Humana, and Unitedhealth, four of which have multibillion-dollar plans to merge, have collectively profited more than $65.5 billion post-ACA, Public Citizen reported in October.”

Meanwhile salaries for insurance execs continue to surge. Consider, she writes:

”{S}alaries for C-suite executives were raised by 57% last year at Health Care Service Corp. (HCSC), which operates Blue Cross and Blue Shield plans in Illinois, Montana, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Texas, according to a recent analysis by Modern Healthcare. The top ten company executives saw their combined earnings increase from a total of $36.1 million in 2014 to $56.7 million in 2015.”

And,  “Hospitals and health systems may actually be the ones that have felt the squeeze the most, and they have acted in ways that are {also} pushing up costs.

“Health systems are consolidating at a rapid pace, and many of them say they have done so to have more leverage with insurance companies. This activity has in turn led to monopolies and duopolies on the provider side as well, which results in not only increased prices to consumers, but also a decrease in quality care as competition is significantly reduced.”

“Hospital prices in monopoly markets are more than 15% higher” than in non-monopoly markets,  says Deborah Feinstein, the Federal Trade Commission’s director of the Bureau of Competition.

“Requiring more transparency around payers’ operating costs and salaries of their C-suite execs could help address these issues. But with Republicans promising a repeal, the ACA may not be available as cover for high costs much longer.

“Thus, insurance companies looking for whom, or what, to blame for the increases may face an uncomfortable reality soon: For every finger they point, three fingers might point back at them.” And, we might add, at some monopolistic hospital systems, too.

To read her whole article, please hit this link.


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