Press-Telegram (Long Beach)

Covered California rates rising by 6% next year

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Premiums for health insurance plans sold through the state marketplac­e will increase an average of 6% next year, Covered California officials announced last week.

The rate hike, which varies by region, is the largest California has seen since 2019. In the past three years, insurers had kept average increases under 2%.

When premiums increase, an individual's financial aid usually does, too. Aid is based on household income, so subsidies may offset some of the increase. But people who don't qualify for subsidies will bear the full cost of the rate hike.

“Premiums are a capturing of what health care costs are, how they vary across geographie­s and communitie­s, how health care costs are growing over time, which we know in this country are already too high and rising,” said Jessica Altman, executive director of Covered California.

She noted that California's rate hike is still lower than it is in other states. A recent Kaiser Family Foundation analysis found a 10% average premium increase proposed by 72 insurers in 13 other states.

The rate increase, Altman said, is largely attributed to people resuming doctor visits and procedures that they postponed during the peaks of the COVID-19 pandemic. There is also the cost of general inflation.

About 1% of the increase, however, is attributed to the potential loss of enhanced subsidies from the federal government, which are set to expire at the end of this year. Without the additional aid, people will pay more for their premiums, likely pushing young, healthy people to drop their coverage. And when healthy people leave the marketplac­e, premiums go up for everyone. jobs report that's due early next month. The median estimate called for 240,000 applicatio­ns in a Bloomberg survey of economists.

Continuing claims for state benefits rose 51,000 to 1.38 million in the week ending July 9, the biggest weekly increase since November.

Unemployme­nt claims are rising as more companies announce job cuts amid increasing fears of a recession. The trend may continue as the Federal Reserve ratchets up its fight against rampant inflation with some of the largest interestra­te hikes in decades, which could ultimately curb demand for workers.

On an unadjusted basis, initial claims increased to 248,991 last week. Unadjusted claims in Massachuse­tts rose by more than 14,000. California, South Carolina and Georgia also posted increases.

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