The health care law gives us new tools to protect consumers who are looking for health insurance. One of those tools is “rate review”. For the first time ever, in every state, insurance companies are required to publicly justify their actions if they want to raise rates by 10 percent or more. These increases are then reviewed by independent experts to decide whether they are reasonable – providing unprecedented transparency and easy-to-understand information about why insurers want to raise your rates. Thanks to health reform, if your insurance company wants to hit your wallet with a major increase, they have to tell you why. And if you don’t like what they have to say, you can take your business elsewhere.
Today, we’re using this tool to protect consumers and crack down on unreasonably high rate increases. We’re announcing that Trustmark Life Insurance Company has unreasonably raised health insurance premiums in: Alabama, Arizona, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Wyoming – which would affect nearly 10,000 residents across these five states.
In each instance, Trustmark raised rates by 13 percent or more over the last year. For small businesses in Alabama and Arizona, when combined with other rate hikes made over the last 12 months, rates have increased by 27.2 percent and 18.1 percent, respectively. You can view more information about these rates here.
These increases are unreasonable and it’s time for Trustmark to immediately rescind the rates, issue refunds to consumers or publicly explain their refusal to do so.
Fonte: White House