Government decision to stop subsidies will cost Georgians

The revocation of Obamacare insurer subsidies will likely cost some Georgia patients hundreds or thousands of dollars in raised premiums.

But in Georgia much of that bad financial news has already started to get out. The subsidy problem was anticipated by insurance companies, who assumed there would be instability regarding the subsidies, and in September they announced much higher rates for 2018.

Georgians who qualify for subsidies won’t see much of the impact because the law mandates that they get“affordable”premiums one way or another. But those who are just above that income threshold, who don’t qualify for subsidies, will bear the brunt.

It’s big. The four companies remaining on Georgia’s Affordable Care Act exchange market put the numbers in black and white.

Revoking the subsidies results in an increase to customers’premiums of about 20 percent, according to their state filings. Three of the four companies –Alliant, Ambetter and Blue Cross Blue Shield of Georgia – submitted as a final average rate increase the one that bakes in the higher cost of losing the subsidies.

Kaiser Permanente, however, in the end submitted the lower rate, the one that assumes subsidies will continue. So it is now re-evaluating.

A spokesman for Kaiser Permanente, Jim Driscoll, said Friday:“We are committed to remaining in the Exchange and have every intention to do so. With that said, we are still evaluating the impact the decision to stop … subsidies will have on Georgia’s marketplace.”

Before the September filings, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Georgia did withdraw from the individual market in metro Atlanta and some other areas, largely as a result of the subsidy instability, it said. Customers are now trying to figure out what to do next.

To make a major rate change for 2018 following the September filings, companies would have to get an agreement from the federal government. The state did not know Friday evening whether a company could pull out for 2018 without federal permission.