Lawton Constitution: Affordable Care Act health insurance rates are expected to rise in Oklahoma in 2016, and the state Insurance Department insists it cannot do anything about rates except review and approve the paperwork.
In the past, however, the department held a somewhat different view, according to a former high-ranking state insurance official.
Jonathan Small, former government affairs director for the state Insurance Department, said he could recall several instances in which the department used its influence to persuade insurance companies that their proposed rates were either too low or too high. Two of those cases involved health insurance, Small said.
“It doesn’t happen that often, but it has happened in the past,” said Small, who is now executive vice president of the Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs, a free-market research and advocacy group. “It would be an awfully gutsy move for a company not to respond to what was communicated to them by the insurance commissioner,” he said.
Small worked for the Insurance Department under former Commissioner Kim Holland, who was defeated in the 2010 election by the current commissioner, John Doak. Holland declined to comment on the department’s ability to influence insurance rates or the cases mentioned by Small.
Oklahoma statutes appear to give the insurance commissioner authority to make decisions about rates. A provision of Title 36, which governs the insurance industry, states, “The insurance commissioner shall not approve rates for insurance which are excessive, inadequate, or unfairly discriminatory.”
The issue of state rate regulation is under discussion across the country as insurers submit proposed rates for individual and small group health insurance policies they want to sell in the Affordable Care Act market in 2016.
For example, the biggest player in Oklahoma’s “Obamacare” market, Blue Cross Blue Shield, has requested federal approval of rate increases averaging 31 percent for all of its individual plans sold in the state next year. (Premiums paid by most policyholders would rise by less than that because of federal subsidies.) The federal review and approval process will be completed this fall, and open enrollment begins Nov. 1.
Insurance Commissioner Doak declined to be interviewed for this story. His communications director, Kelly Dexter, said in a series of phone interviews and emails that the department would continue to review Affordable Care Act rates, but had no power to change them. “Basically, we cannot approve or deny any rates submitted to this department. We do not have statutory authority over any rates,” Dexter said.
Dexter had taken issue with a July 10 Oklahoma Watch story that said the department had “jurisdiction over Oklahoma rates.” The story noted that the department so far had not attempted to change rates approved by the federal government for health policies sold under the Affordable Care Act since January 2014.
“The companies just have to file the proper paperwork with us stating that they are going to change the rates, either increase or decrease … We cannot bar them from doing that,” Dexter said.
In 2011, Doak announced he was returning a $1 million grant awarded to Oklahoma to help the state develop a federally approved rate-review capability. The grant had been requested by Holland before Doak took office.
See also:
- Shocker, not: “I have to pay back my Obamacare subsidy”
- Obamacare Extortion
- Obamacare’s Christmas surprise: You may be enrolled in an insurance plan not of your choosing
- Obamacare’s architect says Americans are too stupid to understand it. 32% of Americans agree
- Now There Can Be No Doubt: Obamacare Has Increased Non-Group Premiums In Nearly All States
- ‘Family Glitch’ in Obamacare to Impact 1.9 Million Americans
- “Useful idiots” college professors discover the reality of Obamacare
- Shocker: ObamaCare subsidies may be wrong for over 1 million Americans
- Obamacare is disincentive to work; will decrease workforce by 2.5M
DCG
