Early look at 2015 MNsure premiums coming out soon
Published 8:56 am Monday, September 29, 2014
MINNEAPOLIS — The state Commerce Department is preparing to release an early snapshot of 2015 premium rates for policies that will be sold on Minnesota’s health insurance exchange, MNsure.
The data should give Minnesota consumers an idea of how much their insurance will cost them next year, how the state’s rates will stack up against the rest of the country, and whether any new health plans will offer policies through MNsure. The department will most likely release the information sometime this week, spokeswoman Anne O’Connor said.
Many individuals who bought private insurance on the exchange likely will pay more next year given that the largest and cheapest carrier, PreferredOne, abruptly pulled out of MNsure this month, leaving the market to Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota, HealthPartners, Medica and UCare. MNsure offered some of the lowest premiums in the country thanks to PreferredOne’s aggressive pricing for the inaugural year, but the carrier decided the strategy was unsustainable.
While consumers buying polices through MNsure will get an idea of whether their premiums will change, MNsure spokeswoman Jenni Bowring-McDonough cautioned that people who qualify for subsidies won’t have a clear picture of their costs until open enrollment begins Nov. 15. They’ll be able to recalculate their eligibility then, and all consumers can shop for a better deal.
Officials with the four remaining health plans in MNsure declined to say how their rates will change for 2015. Medica spokeswoman Dannette Coleman said margins in the industry are tight, but her company hopes to expand membership from the approximately 5 percent of private-plan signups it had this year.
“We do hope and expect that we will grow our enrollment from the previous year, but we also believe a stable market is critical. … We think it’s very dangerous and unsustainable to price too aggressively in this market,” Coleman said.