Health care costs, already rising more than twice the rate of inflation, could increase this year at an even faster pace, according to officials with Tennessee’s biggest health insurer.
Most employers insured by BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee last year trimmed the double-digit rate increases quoted to renew their existing plans by raising employee deductibles, premiums and co-payments. But faced with further cuts in Medicare and Medicaid payments and increases in the number of patients without any health insurance, hospitals and doctors are raising their commercial rates by bigger amounts this year to make up for the shortfall.
“We are seeing some significant rate increases being requested by providers right now, although we’re working to do what we can to hold down those costs,” BlueCross President Vicky Gregg said Tuesday.
The Chattanooga-based health insurer — the state’s biggest with nearly 3 million members — has managed to stay in the bottom quartile of rate increases among health insurers, Mrs. Gregg said. In a meeting with editors and reporters at the Times Free Press, Mrs. Gregg likened her company’s relative advantage to the woman standing between two ugly sisters.
“We may look better than who we are standing next to, but it’s still an ugly picture from the consumer perspective,” she said. “These increases are two to three times any increase in wages or overall inflation.”