For the second time in the past eight months, Tennessee’s biggest health insurer is mailing rebate checks to individuals who purchased their health insurance through the health exchange market over the past three years.
BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee is sending refunds this month averaging $250 each to about 100,000 Tennesseans who bought individual coverage under the Affordable Care Act health exchange market in 2018. The rebates stem from the extra $214 million given to BlueCross in Tennessee after the Supreme Court ruled last year that insurers were not being adequately compensated by the federal government for the risk factors under the so-called Obamacare program during its first three years.
Under the so-called Obamacare program, health insurers must refund premium income paid by both the government and subscribers if administrative costs and profits exceed 20% of the premiums paid. Last September, BlueCross issued refunds averaging $890 for participants in the individual health exchange markets in 2019.
The Chattanooga-based BlueCross and BlueShield is the biggest provider of so-called Obamacare plans in Tennessee, but the insurer did not provide its plans in 2018 in the state’s biggest markets in Nashville or Memphis.
BlueCross initially lost money on the health exchange market when it began in 2014 and the Chattanooga-based insurer subsequently doubled its rates over the next two years and withdrew from the state’s two biggest cities to make up for the shortfall.