Calif. ObamaCare rates to rise 4 percent

California’s ObamaCare marketplace announced on Monday that premiums would rise by an average of 4 percent next year, an increase that defenders of the law characterized as modest.

The announcement comes as Republicans have seized on proposed premium increases of 30 percent or more in some places. 

{mosads}“This is another year of good news for California’s consumers and further evidence that the Affordable Care Act is working,” said Peter Lee, executive director of Covered California, the state ObamaCare marketplace.

“Covered California is holding the line on rates and keeping coverage within reach of hundreds of thousands of consumers, while giving them more choices than ever before.”

California’s experience with ObamaCare is closely watched, as it has more than 1.3 million enrollees, the second most of any state.

The 4 percent increase is slightly less than last year’s increase for California of 4.2 percent. The rates are still subject to review from regulators.  

The marketplace also said that consumers’ premiums could fall by an average of 4.5 percent if they shopped around and switched to the lowest-cost plan within the same broader “medal tier” of price and benefits.

In other states, President Obama has put faith in state insurance commissioners to review the rate increases put forward by insurance companies, and in some cases force them down. 

Asked about rate increases in Tennessee last month, Obama said the key is “just making sure that the insurance commissioner does their job in not just passively reviewing the rates, but really asking, okay, what is it that you are looking for here?  Why would you need very high premiums?”  

“And my expectation is, is that they’ll come in significantly lower than what’s being requested,” he said. 

Kevin Counihan, the federal CEO of the ObamaCare marketplace, wrote a letter to state insurance commissioners last week pressing them to scrutinize the proposed rate increases. 

In the letter, Counihan noted that healthier people have been signing up more recently, and that medical costs have been increasingly modestly. 

He also referred to a government program that reimburses insurance companies for costs that exceed a certain level. 

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch wrote in a CNN op-ed last week that while the White House’s victory in the Supreme Court allows the law to remain in place at least through 2016, premium increases show its flaws. 

“While the Court’s ruling did allow the administration to continue recklessly implementing Obamacare, it did nothing to change an unmistakable flaw of the law — its fundamental inability to address rising premiums and costs that will burden many American families and taxpayers as a result,” Hatch wrote.