Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Kathleen Sebelius exercised, for the first time, her power under Obamacare to embarrass a private insurance company for raising insurance premiums by an amount deemed “unreasonably high” by the federal government.
“The HHS review has found that Everence[ Insurance’s] 12 percent rate increase for small businesses in Pennsylvania was excessive,” HHS announced after conducting their first federal review of insurance rates. The department faulted Everence, a company based in Indiana with customers in Pennsylvania, for calculating its premium increases by using “national data rather than reliable and available state data.”
Sebelius criticized Everence in the name of consumer protection. “We hope that by publicizing the excessive premium hikes, we will empower consumers,” she said last Monday. “By shining a light on unjustified premium increases, we will hold health insurers accountable like never before, and help keep money in the pockets of Americans.”
HHS believes that these rate reviews, created through Obamacare, rescue consumers from “hav[ing] to navigate the health insurance market blindly and on their own,” in the words of Steve Larsen, director of the Center for Consumer Information and Insurance Oversight.
“Companies can either reduce their rate hikes or post a justification on their website within 10 days of the rate review determination,” HHS said.
