Good news if you’re shopping for health insurance: Pennsylvanians buying coverage through the government online market will find lower average monthly premiums in November when compared to a year ago.
The state Insurance Department announced Thursday that monthly premiums for individual health insurance coverage under the Affordable Care Act will drop an average 3.3% starting in January when compared to 2020.
Small group insurance under the ACA, also known as Obamacare, will increase an average 2.1% for the 2021 plan year when compared to 2020.
For individual coverage, UPMC will be raising premiums by 1.28% with the start of the new plan year in January, while Highmark will be trimming premiums by less than 1%.
Highmark and UPMC Health Plan are the two carriers that will be selling insurance plans through the government exchange in Western Pennsylvania, a part of the state roughly between Greene and Erie counties on the north and south and as far east as Centre County from Beaver County on the west, according to the Insurance Department.
Highmark received a 0.67% premium decrease from the Insurance Department when compared to the current year; UPMC got permission to increase rates by 1.28%. UPMC officials were not available for comment Thursday.
The average lowest cost silver plan premium this year is $449 a month in Pennsylvania, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation, a San Francisco-based nonprofit research organization.
Insurance Commissioner Jessica Altman credited the creation of a state exchange in 2019 and a re-insurance program to cover big claims as playing a part in cutting average rates.
The Pennsylvania Legislature voted in 2019 to take over the online health insurance marketplace from the federal government. Instead of the federal government getting fees from insurance carriers totaling $90 million annually, the state is using that money to create the re-insurance program to backstop larger claims.
“The Insurance Department has worked diligently to keep rate increases low for consumers in the individual and small group markets,” Ms. Altman said in a prepared statement on Thursday. “The re-insurance program is the reason individual market rates are decreasing rather than increasing this year.”
Nearly 300,000 Pennsylvanians are expected to buy health insurance on the state government website, dubbed Pennie, which was created in September when the state took over enrollment responsibilities from the federal government.
State officials have previously said ACA members will automatically see their information moved from the federal website to pennie.com.
Open enrollment for Affordable Care Act plans begins Nov. 1 and ends Jan. 15.
Nearly nine out of 10 applicants for the coverage will receive government subsidies, state officials said. Pennie is the only place where financial assistance for health insurance will be available.
Kris B. Mamula: kmamula@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1699
Updated at 3:01 p.m. on 10/15/2020
First Published: October 15, 2020, 2:24 p.m.