Courtesy of Mish.
News on Obamacare cannot possibly come at a better time for the Trump campaign.
The Obamacare exchanges in Minnesota are near collapse.
The state’s insurance regulator says Minnesota health-care is in an “emergency situation” and calls the average 60% hike a “stopgap for 2017”.
Please consider Near ‘Collapse,’ Minnesota to Raise Obamacare Rates by Half.
Minnesota will let the health insurers in its Obamacare market raise rates by at least 50 percent next year, after the individual market there came to the brink of collapse, the state’s commerce commissioner said Friday.
The increases range from 50 percent to 67 percent, Commissioner Mike Rothman’s office said in a statement. Rothman, who regulates the state’s insurers, is an appointee under Governor Mark Dayton, a Democrat. The rate hike follows increases for this year of 14 percent to 49 percent.
“It’s in an emergency situation — we worked hard and avoided a collapse.” Rothman said in a telephone interview. “It’s a stopgap for 2017.”
On average, rates in the state will rise by about 60 percent, said Shane Delaney, a spokesman for MNSure, the state’s marketplace for Obamacare plans. About 250,000 people, or 5 percent of the state’s population, were covered under plans bought on the individual market, including plans bought on the Affordable Care Act markets as well as outside it.
Lie of the Day
The lie of the day comes from Jonathan Gold, a spokesman for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
Minnesotans would still have affordable options for coverage next year said Gold. “Headline rate changes do not reflect what these consumers actually pay because tax credits reduce the cost of coverage below the sticker price.”
Of the about 70,000 people who had insurance on the Obamacare markets this year, 63 percent got subsidies last year, according to the commissioner’s office.
