COMMENTARY Health Care Reform

Health Care Choices and Premiums: What’s Going on in Virginia

Jul 18, 2018 1 min read

Domestic Policy Studies

Over the first three years of Obamacare, per capita monthly premiums in Virginia increased by 59%, from $229 in 2013 to $365 in 2016.
Over the first five years of Obamacare, 40% fewer insurers offered Exchange coverage in Virginia, from 10 in 2013 to 6 in 2018.
2019 Rate Request Submission: CareFirst is proposing a 64.3 percent average increase for plans offered by its Group Hospitalization and Medical Services subsidiary and a 26.6 percent average rate increase for its other plans. Other insurers offering individual market coverage in Virginia are asking for average increases of: 5.6 percent for Anthem; 15 percent for Cigna; 18.25 percent for Piedmont Community HealthCare, 32.10 percent for Kaiser and a average 1.9 percent decrease for Optima on-exchange plans and an average 4.9 percent decrease for its off-exchange plans.
2019 Rate Finalized: Finalized by mid-October

Health care remains a major focus of the public discussion as premium prices rise and choices dwindle. Throughout the summer and into the fall, Obamacare insurers will announce decisions about the prices they want to charge and plans they want to offer next year, submitting them to regulators for review and approval. Research shows prices have been rising steadily since Obamacare was first implemented, more than doubling in some places because of its failed policies and regulations.

The best way to provide relief for Americans struggling under these heavy burdens is to replace Obamacare with free-market solutions that put patients and doctors—not federal bureaucrats—in charge of health care decisions and dollars.

The three states that have begun to provide this kind of relief – after being granted federal waivers from Obamacare - are seeing rate reductions. Congress should go farther and make it easy for states to take these actions.