From a blog report with many links comes unwanted news: Florida Health Insurance Premiums are "skyrocketing": Robert Trigaux, Business Editor of the St. Petersburg Times in his Venture Blog, "Florida's Still Losing the War on Skyrocketing Health Premiums" posted November 17, 2011. And by the way, Hurricane Season is not officially over yet, either.
While this post was being written and before going to press, so to speak, the Obama Administration responded to the rising tide of Premium Rate Hikes in Health Insurance. Using a provision of the newly enacted Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act for the first time since the provision just took effect, the Department of Health and Human Services is forcing a Health Insurer to publicly justify a 12% Premium increase on 5,000 people who are employed by small businesses in Pennsylvania. Previously, Health and Human Services reviewed the same insurer's 11% increase in Montana and determined that there, the increase was justifiable. Now, the affected Health Insurer is required by law to publicly justify its Premium increase in Pennsylvania within 10 days. See Noam N. Levey, "Obama Administration Calls on Health Insurer to Reduce Rate Hike / Using a Tool in the New Healthcare Law For the First Time, Officials Call the 12% Increase 'Unreasonable'" (Los Angeles Times Online at latimes.com, Tuesday, November 22, 2011).
The new Federal Healthcare Law does not give the Federal Government power to actually roll back Health Insurance Premium increases. It gives the Federal Government the new power to force affected Health Insurance Companies to publicly justify why they want the increases. See id. Perhaps sunlight is just what they need.
The author is Co-Chair of the Health, Life and Disability Insurance Subcommittee of the American Bar Association's Insurance Coverage Litigation Committee.
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