PROVIDENCE, R.I. (WJAR) — “The headwinds that are coming from Washington are serious,” said Gov. Dan McKee, sounding the alarm about enhanced tax credits going away.
“The Health Source RI is going to be impacted significantly if those tax credits are not continued.”
The elimination of enhanced tax credits could amount, he said, to up to an 85% increase in rates for 40,000 people on the state based health insurance marketplace. That’s most of them.
Now, the Office of the Health Insurance Commissioner–OHIC–has just approved major hikes requested by local private commercial insurers–anywhere from 13 to 22%.
That was after denying a requested hike for administrative costs.
“I’ll be sending a letter as well to the chairs of every HMO in the state that services people explaining that this is not acceptable and that the boards need to also help in containing these costs,” said McKee.
Part of the problem as the governor sees it is OHIC needs more teeth, i.e. legislative empowerment.
“We got to make sure that anywhere where we can empower the OHIC because that’s who’s got the authority to set these rates,” he said.
McKee said he is concerned these rate hikes will discourage people from signing up.
The other side of the coin are companies that are self insured; in other words they aren’t subject to state mandates and approvals.
That affects 65% of the people in Rhode Island.
While it’s unclear how much those rates will go up, they likely will due to increased medical–including prescriptions costs.
The enhanced tax credits only affect those who sign up through Affordable Care Act marketplaces.