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February 05, 2014 at 05:49 AM
A year ago – before major Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act health insurance underwriting and pricing rules took effect – carriers sold 617 plans to working-age adults in California.
Annual base rates for a single, 19-year-old, nonsmoking male ranged from $672 to $11,664, with a median premium of $1,704.
Carriers sold just 120 individual plans in New York state, and that same 19-year-old male could pay anywhere from $1,986 per year to $24,324, with a median annual premium of $5,750.
Texas carriers offered the 19-year-old male 5,422 plans, with an annual premium ranging from $363 to $4,790 and a median of $1,203.
Analysts at the U.S. Government Accountability Office have published those figures – and similar sets of data for all other states and the District of Columbia – in an individual health insurance price benchmarking report prepared at the request of Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah.
The analysts looked at figures only for 19-year-olds and 64-year-olds. Because of PPACA pricing rules, coverage for adults ages 19 to 64 are now roughly equal to the coverage price for a 19-year-old times a multiple based on the insured’s age.
Hatch asked the GAO to develop a report to give policymakers a tool for analyzing the effects of PPACA and other policy initiatives on individual health insurance prices.
