Thursday, June 2, 2011

HHS cuts premiums in Kentucky

This week, Health and Human Services (HHS) cut premiums in 17 states by 40 percent for individuals with pre-existing conditions. Kentucky is one state that will see these premiums decline.

One reason for the cut is the low enrollment in the law's Pre-Existing Condition Insurance Plan. To date only 18,000 Americans have signed up for the plan, while the government had predicted that 375,000 Americans would enroll in this plan in 2010.

The question remains, why have the numbers for enrollment in the high-risk pool remained so low? Will the federal government's incentives be enough to move hundreds of thousands to this plan? And beyond that, what will the impact be to the private insurance market, specifically in Kentucky?

Is this the type of reform that will drive costs down and spur innovation in the market? The federal government's increasing role in our health care should cause concern. In Kentucky, we remember the failed state-run experiment in the 90's all too well.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

The data missing in this report is some indication of the premiums being charged. Maybe, just maybe, they are very high to start with for this group of people. If the people thought the premiums were reasonable, they would probably act like projected.

What great deal was the government providing people with this arrangement? And what is a representative premium after the cut?