Health insurers in some states are requesting premium increases of 30 percent or more as they face uncertainty over whether Congress will make changes to the current healthcare law — and whether President Donald Trump will make good on his promise to cut subsidies if they do not.
According to a report in The Wall Street Journal, large providers in Idaho, West Virginia, South Carolina, Iowa, and Wyoming are asking for those higher rates as mid-August deadlines loom. Rate increases of 20 percent and above are being sought in New Mexico, Tennessee, North Dakota, and Hawaii, according to a report by the Department of Health and Human Services.
In addition to the troubles Republicans in the Senate have had in crafting a repeal and replace — or even an outright repeal — of the Affordable Care Act, they also want to know whether the Trump administration will scrub the individual and employer mandates. That aspect of Obamacare, as the ACA is popularly known, requires younger, healthier people to buy insurance or face a fine, and it serves to lower the rates of older and less healthy members of the group.
"It's challenging; you learn to be very fluid," Steve Ringel, president of the Ohio market for the nonprofit CareSource, told the Journal. CareSource has prepared various rate filings depending on what happens in Washington.
"Resolution of the [cost-sharing payments] is an urgent issue," Bill Wehrle, a vice president at Kaiser Permanente, said. "We're coming up at a point that's fairly soon, where the pricing decisions we make are set for all of next year."
© 2025 Newsmax. All rights reserved.