Dems: State needs to help iron out individual health insurance kinks
NASHVILLE - State government needs to take a leadership role in tackling the problems in the individual health insurance market, which leaves patients in a persistent state of uncertainty, according to state Democrats and patient advocates.
Sen. Jeff Yarbro and Rep. John Ray Clemmons, both Nashville Democrats, convened a forum this week to look at why the state’s individual health insurance premiums have grown and how to mitigate the impact of insurers’ exit from metropolitan markets on consumers who have a dwindling number of options, particularly in three metro areas where some health systems are excluded from benefits.
The majority of Tennesseans have access to insurance through employer-sponsored coverage but those who are buying individual plans are beset by annual changes in available insurers, and rising premiums. The state has had among the highest premium increases in the past two years, in part because the people buying insurance are sicker than projected and using services more frequently than expected.
Yarbro and Chris Coleman, an attorney with the Tennessee Justice Center, agreed that legislative moves in the state — including anti-ACA legislation prior to the federal policy enactment and failure to expand Medicaid — have hindered the ability of the federally run exchange to take root and develop.
“From the outset we haven’t done everything we could to implement the Affordable Care Act with fidelity and integrity,” said Yarbro.
Michael Humphreys, assistant insurance commissioner at the Tennessee Department of Commerce and Insurance, was supposed to speak at the forum but canceled the night before at the request of the governor’s staff, said Yarbro, who added the meeting had been scheduled around Humphreys’ availability.
“We always want to be available to legislators to answer their questions. This felt like a politically-motivated meeting,” said Jennifer Donnals, spokeswoman for Gov. Bill Haslam.
The 2017 exchange is rollicked by BCBST’s last minute decision to cease selling individual plans in the three major metro areas. UnitedHealthcare will not sell insurance in 2017, leaving the state after one year.
The move left the remaining insurers, Cigna and Humana, as well as health systems in Nashville “scrambling like crazy” because now more than 70,000 people will need to move to new plans and potentially find new physicians, said Jackie Shrago, special projects coordinator for Tennessee Healthcare Campaign.
A state public awareness campaign would be about the importance of buying insurance even at healthier stages of life would be central to reaching a wider variety of people to buy plans, and help balance the risk pools, Coleman said, referencing previous campaigns to get people to enroll in TennCare in the mid-1990s and anti-drunk driving campaigns.