Posted on 09/16/2014 9:35:35 AM PDT by Parmenio
It’s a major blow to the MNsure health insurance exchange – the insurance company with the lowest rates and the most customers signed up through MNsure will not be back in 2015.
The decision is expected to have a major impact on health insurance customers and the governor’s race.
Golden Valley-based PreferredOne Health Insurance just notified MNsure and the Minnesota Department of Commerce of their decision through a letter. Sources tell KSTP’s Tom Hauser that MNsure CEO Scott Leitz was notified by phone Tuesday morning.
PreferredOne Spokesman Steve Peterson tells Hauser this is “purely a business decision.” He says the company decided continuing to offer insurance through MNsure is “not administratively and financially sustainable going forward.”
“Our MNsure individual product membership is only a small percentage of the entire PreferredOne enrollment but is taking a significant amount of our resources to support administratively,” a company statement says. “We feel continuing on MNsure was not sustainable and believe this is an important step to best serve all PreferredOne members.”
The company also says MNsure was unable to effectively verify information submitted by enrollees, but insurance companies are still required to accept and enroll them. As a result, the company ended up with enrollees who don’t even live in Minnesota in some cases.
“The decision to make this change was not made lightly,” the company statement said. “We believe this is an important step to best serve all of our members in the long run.”
As of Aug. 6, Preferred One had 59 percent of the individual market MNsure enrollees. Blue Cross Blue Shield was a distant second at 23 percent, with HealthPartners, Medica and UCare much further back.
Preferred One got such a large share because they had the lowest rates of the five insurance companies in the program.
It’s possible this could signal big rate increases to be unveiled in early October, and that could have a significant impact on the elections.
“One of the big land mines looking out over the campaign will be when MNsure announces its new rates for health insurance premiums,” University of Minnesota political expert Larry Jacobs said. “If those go up by 10 percent, some have even suggested 15 percent, then that could really shake up this election.”
The change won’t affect coverage for 2014, but it will affect new sales and renewals for 2015.
Anyone who has PreferredOne through MNsure can still directly renew through the company, but they won’t get the government subsidy. To get the subsidy, they will have to choose a different insurance plan starting Nov. 15.
People want free health care.
They’re not suckers. The only suckers are insurance companies who foolishly believed Obamacare would give them a captive market.
Ask MNSure how well that has worked out for them.
Obamacare will crumble under it’s own weight. No need to repeal.
My brother is working with one of the big insurers, trying to coordinate Obamacare with their policies.
He says it is a major mess and will not be fixed for a very long time, if ever. The "not administratively sustainable" is bigger than the "not financially sustainable" part.
....”Obamacare will crumble under it’s own weight. No need to repeal”....
The fix will be the governments complete take over of Health Insurance companys.....
I don’t think this will ever happen. Too many insurance companies have bought off Senators (both parties), and they simply will not vote to allow any government ownership of the policies.
I also don’t see how forcing everyone onto Medicare would work in a practical world....ending health insurance. Again, those Senators are already bought off and will not get talked into allowing Medicare to be the one single force of power for this whole mess.
lemme guess....their analysts are predicting a GOP Senate and expecting the risk corridor subsidy gravy train will screech to a halt?
Oh I think it’s quite possible regardless of what senators have or not been bought....remember we have a President who abuses Executive privilege....a “plague” or something such as could position him to do just that....for the welfare of the general public of course.
and just to buffer my take Obama could do that....we’re going to war all over the map without anyone declaring war...thus “terrorist” is now being used for any in these conflicts so that he can bypass congress.
Ukraine comes to mind...also Syria.
Single payer. The gov commies just got to it in a roundabout way
Yep...it’s going to come to that for sure.
Today I went to a heart doctor for a stress test. It was a follow up because another doctor who treated my cold, strep throat, bronchitis (over 6 weeks) sent me because I said I had some chest pain and breathing problems. The last medicine I took was Prednisone which fixed the problem.
By the time I went today the problem was gone. I felt great. Anyways.... they took pictures with their sonar machine (fish locator as I call it) and the heart looked normal and the next step was the treadmill.
A nurse came in and said they cannot do it as Aetna did not approve it but will if done as a separate test which they would have to schedule another day...... Argh!
Mind you I was all wired up and just had to step on the treadmill but some paper pushing weeny said nope, gotta do a two step and do it another day to get covered. This isn’t even obamacare either but the same company plan as I have had for years.
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