ACA premiums not expected to spike in Ohio

Industry experts and insurers are saying that  Ohio consumers who bought coverage through the new health insurance marketplace are unlikely to experience rate shock from skyrocketing premiums in 2015 as some critics of the Affordable Care Act have warned (source: “ACA premiums likely to remain stable,” Dayton Daily News, May 24, 2014).

Premiums are expected to rise for most policyholders as next year’s rate proposals start to roll into the Ohio Department of Insurance over the next several weeks. But concerns about losing customers to lower-priced competitors among insurers submitting rate requests are likely to keep prices in check, said John Bowblis, a health economist at Miami University.

“The more firms that you have the more competition there is and therefore you can’t increase prices as much,” said Bowblis, pointing out that a dozen companies competed for for market share among the more than 154,000 Ohioans who signed up for private health insurance under the ACA. “In a state like Ohio with 12 companies, prices shouldn’t rise that much other than what we expect regular medical inflation to be.”