New Report: Wisconsin Health Insurance Costs Higher Due to State Actions

Statewide: On a media call Thursday July 3rd, Citizen Action of Wisconsin released “Taking the Next Step: The Role of States in Restraining Health Insurance Costs” (audio here). The full report uses statistical research techniques to demonstrate a relationship between state policy choices and health insurance rates. The report is based on first year 2014 premiums rates in 34 state which are publicly available due to the Affordable Care Act.

The media call was joined by Senator Minority Leader Chris Larson and Jon Peacock of Wisconsin Council on Children and Families.

The report reveals that 3 state policies that Wisconsin has not pursued have a measurable impact on the cost of coverage. Accepting federal Medicaid funds for BadgerCare, requiring insurance companies to submit proposed rates for prior approval, and having an elected insurance commissioner all are associated with lower health insurance premiums. The full report can be downloaded here. The report finds that the average Wisconsin resident will pay over $250 more per year because of failure to accept the funds for BadgerCare, while having a robust system of reviewing insurance rates could have reduced rates as much as $747.12 a year for the average individual plan.

Key Findings

In states that opt to reject federal Medicaid expansion funds, first year private insurance individual market rates are on average $373.68 per year higher.

States such as Wisconsin which took other steps to limit the "coverage gap" when rejecting enhanced Medicaid funds still had premiums $251.29 per year higher than states which accepted the money.

States with robust rate review which includes "prior authorization" for rate increases had first year insurance rate reductions of $747.12 on the individual market.

States with elected insurance commissioners experienced a $519.84 reduction in private costs per year on the individual market.