35k Ohioans to get insurance refund

More than 35,000 people in Ohio will get refunds or other consideration totaling $1.2 million because their insurers didn’t spend 80 percent of their 2013 premiums on patient care (Source: “Insurers owe $330M in Obamacare ‘refunds’,” Cincinnati Enquirer, July 23, 2014).

The number of Ohioans getting refunds is much lower than neighboring states Kentucky and Indiana, where 209,476 and 254,127 consumers, respectively, will get $18.2 million in total refunds.

The ACA’s  80/20 rule, which was designed to curb administrative costs in health care, went into effect in 2011.

The “refunds” may not come directly to every consumer. The health reform law allows these ways of distributing the “refund” money back to subscribers in several ways, including a check in the mail, a reduction in their future premiums or letting employer use refunds to improve employee health coverage. Nationwide, consumers will receive $330 million in refunds, with 6.8 million consumers due to receive an average national refund benefit of $80 per family.