The lowest-cost "silver plan" available to those seeking health insurance via the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act exchanges experienced only minor premium increases from 2014 to 2015, with some states reported decreases.
This study of plan premium movement, by the Urban Institute with funding from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, offers further support for stability in the marketplace for the popular silver plans. Earlier, a report from Commonwealth Fund found that premiums barely budged overall for the most popular of the silver plans, the second lowest-cost plan.
The national average for premium increases for these plans was 2.9 percent, the institute found. However, by region, there was variation.
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The South reported the highest increase: 5.4 percent. Meanwhile, increases were marginal in the West (1.4 percent) and the Northeast (1.8 percent). Only the Midwest was close to the national average at 3.5 percent.
When the study looked at increases in selected urban areas, the results by region showed the same pattern. The major southern cities experienced a 6 percent increase, while in the major western cities, premium increases actually fell by an average of 2.2 percent. Denver, Seattle, Phoenix and Albuquerque all reported double-digit drops. The only non-western city to report a double-digit drop was Rochester, New York.
The report cited the essential marketplace structure of PPACA as the reason for overall premium stability.
"The competitive success thus far is attributable to the managed competition framework built into the Affordable Care Act, where premium tax credits are tied to the second-lowest-cost silver plan in an individual's rating area," the report concluded.
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Dan Cook
Dan Cook is a journalist and communications consultant based in Portland, OR. During his journalism career he has been a reporter and editor for a variety of media companies, including American Lawyer Media, BusinessWeek, Newhouse Newspapers, Knight-Ridder, Time Inc., and Reuters. He specializes in health care and insurance related coverage for BenefitsPRO.
