DOVER, Del. (AP) - Delaware’s insurance commissioner says there was an error in the proposed rate increase request from the lone insurer offering coverage under the Affordable Care Act in Delaware.
The Department of Insurance announced last month that Highmark Blue Cross Blue Shield of Delaware was seeking an average rate increase of 5.7 percent for individual plan coverage for next year.
Insurance Commissioner Trinidad Navarro announced Thursday at a meeting of the Delaware Health Care Commission that independent actuaries had found an error, and that the proposed rate increase is actually 3.7 percent.
Rates for various plans could increase as much as 20.7 percent or decrease by as much as 3.5 percent.
Currently, roughly 20,000 Delawareans have individual coverage under the Affordable Care Act.
According to the Department of Insurance, Highmark included a payment for risk adjustment in its rate filing, even though it is the only insurer in the state offering ACA coverage. The ACA’s risk adjustment program is designed to transfers funds from companies with lower risk enrollees to companies with higher risk enrollees.
Matt Stehl, a spokesman for Highmark, said the company adjusted its rate filing on Tuesday.
“When we initially filed our ACA rate request we included a risk adjustment factor in anticipation of at least one other carrier entering the market in 2019,” Stehl said in an email. “Upon learning that we would be the only issuer in the Delaware individual market again in 2019, we were able to remove the factor for anticipated risk adjustment payments to other issuers.”
Stehl said Highmark did not include a risk adjustment factor in last year’s rate filing because company officials knew Highmark would be the only issuer in the Delaware individual market this year.
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