Pennsylvanians who buy health insurance on the state\u2019s Affordable Care Act marketplace \u2014 called Pennie \u2014 are set to see another year of sharp rate hikes as state regulators approved double-digit increases for 2027.<\/p>\n
The Pennsylvania Insurance Department, responsible for analyzing and approving rate proposals by insurance companies, announced those who buy insurance on their own will see an average increase of 15.97%. For small businesses, the average increase will be 10.28%.<\/p>\n
Pennie often serves small-business owners, rideshare drivers, restaurant and service employees without employer coverage and older adults who are not yet eligible for Medicare.<\/p>\n
Highmark and UPMC are the two largest health insurance companies in Allegheny County.<\/p>\n
Highmark\u2019s individual market plans will rise 14.5% for those in Western and Central Pennsylvania and 19.7% for those in parts of the eastern half of the state. That\u2019s down from initial requests of 16.2% and 21.4% respectively.<\/p>\n
UPMC Health Network Inc. plans will jump 9.7%, while those insured under UPMC Health Plan Inc. will see a hike of 13.5%. UPMC did not explain by press time the difference between the plans.<\/p>\n
The hospital system and insurer originally sought increases of 12% and 15.8% respectively.<\/p>\n
Pennsylvania Insurance Commissioner Michael Humphreys said in July the proposed costs were higher than the agency had hoped to see.<\/p>\n
Insurers submit rate proposals to the state insurance department containing detailed information about expected expenses for the coming year.<\/p>\n
Ultimately, the agency blocked about $95 million of the proposed increases for 2027, while \u201cfacing realities\u201d that insurers paid $845 million more in claims in 2025 than the previous year.<\/p>\n
\u201cUnfortunately, healthcare cuts by the federal government continue to drive up costs for Pennsylvania families. We understand that these rate increases are rough on Pennsylvania families and businesses, and we fought insurers for every savings we could reasonably assert,\u201d Humphreys said in a statement.<\/p>\n
Last year, Pennsylvania\u2019s nearly half-million ACA enrollees faced an average increase of 21.5%, according to a state release.<\/p>\n
Pennie reported more than 200,000 people have canceled coverage since late last year, among them many young, healthy policyholders. As of Sept. 1, enrollment in the program sat around 417,000.<\/p>\n
That comes after Congress missed an end-of-year deadline last December to extend stronger financial aid introduced in 2021.<\/p>\n
Anyone earning more than four times the federal poverty level \u2014 about $62,000 for a single adult \u2014 must now pay the full cost of their premiums.<\/p>\n
Previously, subsidies ensured no one put more than 8.5% of their income toward premiums.<\/p>\n
In a statement, Highmark blamed rising costs and the expiration of federal tax credits for the rate hikes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Pennsylvanians who buy health insurance on the state\u2019s Affordable Care Act marketplace \u2014 called Pennie \u2014 are set…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":857328,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[59],"tags":[97,252,253],"class_list":["post-857327","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health-care","tag-health","tag-health-care","tag-healthcare"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/857327","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=857327"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/857327\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/857328"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=857327"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=857327"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=857327"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}