Republican senators opposed to ObamaCare introduced legislation Wednesday to waive the individual penalty for not buying health insurance due to what one lawmaker said are "intolerable" increases in insurance rates along with a lack of choice next year from health insurers offering health exchange plans.
"Come November, nearly a third of the nation's counties will have only one insurer for you to choose from when you have to buy health insurance on the regional Obamacare exchange as the market collapses and insurance companies are leaving the Obamacare exchanges in droves," said U.S. Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., the chairman of the Senate Health Committee. "This legislation would allow your state to give you the option of buying health insurance wherever you can find it whether on or off the Obamacare exchange."
Alexander has called the 62 percent average rate increase planned next year by the Chattanooga-based Blue- Cross BlueShield of Tennessee "intolerable," making the Affordable Care Act unsustainable. Cigna and Humana will compete with BlueCross in Tennessee's urban cities with individual health care plans, but they are each planning rate increases of more than 40 percent in 2017.
Despite record rate increases planned next year by health insurers still participating in the health exchange plans in Tennessee under the Affordable Care Act, the White House said Wednesday that the health care reform measure is benefiting most Tennesseans.
Backers of ObamaCare touted new studies showing that more Tennesseans have health care insurance and costs for employer-sponsored plans are rising slower with better health care results under the Affordable Care Act than they did before the law was adopted in 2010.
The average premium for families with employer-sponsored health plans grew just 3.4 percent in 2016, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation and Health Research and Educational Trust survey. The White House Council of Economic Advisers calculates that the average family premium in Tennessee was $2,100 lower in 2015 than if premiums had grown at the same rate as the pre-ACA decade.
U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Mathews Burwell also said ObamaCare has extended insurance to 266,000 Tennesseans from 2010 to 2015. Only 10.3 percent of people in Tennessee went uninsured in 2015, new Census data show, down from 14.4 percent in 2010.·
Burwell also said that hospital readmissions for Tennessee Medicare beneficiaries dropped 8.7 percent between 2010 and 2015, according to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
"Affordability, access, and quality are how we measure success in the health care system," Burwell said in a statement. "This week's data show Tennessee is making progress on all three under the Affordable Care Act."
But major health insurers like United Healthcare, Aetna and Humana are scaling back or dropping their participation in health exchange plans, leaving 57 counties in Tennessee with only BlueCross plans. In other states, most counties don't have any competition among health insurers.
"More than 11,000 people in my home state recently learned that they would have to find a new health care plan after an insurer announced that it would be leaving the New Hampshire partnership exchange next year," said New Hampshire Sen. Kelly Ayotte. "Higher premiums and fewer choices are impacting real people today, and hardworking Granite Staters can't afford to keep taking these hits. Our legislation would provide a temporary means to lessen the burdens of ObamaCare."
Alexander said the one-year waiver of the tax penalty for those who don't buy an individual health insurance plan "gives Americans a real solution for next year and lets them know that we are on their side" until the GOP works after the election to try to repeal Obamacare, which Democrats have vowed to block.
"Even if we have a Democratic president next year, we cannot continue without making big, structural changes soon to avoid a collapse of our nation's health insurance market," Alexander said.
Contact Dave Flessner at dflessner@timesfree press.com or at 423-757-6340.