Covered California announces rates for 2015; the Los Angeles region will have a 4.3 % price increase which is 0.1% higher than the 4.2% state average these are welcome news for all Angelnos. Ten insurance carrier participating in Covered California 2014 remain in 2015. Aetna, UHC, Assurant and Cigna are still not partnering with Covered California.
Kaiser Permanente who had last year in comparison to other carrier higher rates ,reduced their rates overall drastically, so that they are competitive priced to Blue Shield. Blue Shield of California announced a 6 % increase, which is in comparison to Anthem ( 11-16 % increase and Health Net with a 7 – 9% increase for their EPO’s still very competitive. Last year Blue Shield and Anthem had each a 23% market share, Health Net a significant 32%, and Kaiser only a 10 % market share, LA Care a 11 % and Molina Care a 1% market share. 61 % of all participants bought Silver Plans 24 % Bronze, 7 % Gold and 6 % Platinum plans. With Kaiser’s rates reduction for 2015 I foresee that the market shares of the insurance carrier will be changing.
In the Ventura County Santa Barbara area the price increase is 5.1% . In comparison, the carrier offer almost the same premiums for 2015, so only the different networks will determine what the best carrier will be for a specific client .
The San Francisco region with a 6.6 % increase and Orange County region with a 6.3 % increase are significant higher than the statewide increase of 4.2 % . But again also in these regions Kaiser reduced their rates, Blue Shield increased their rates 6 % , Anthem and Health Net showing higher rate increases. For detail rates per region please review this link
In the press release of Covered California , Peter Lee said “that the amount of subsidy that individuals will receive either increase or remain very close to the 2014 subsidy amounts. This means that for many consumers, any increase in premium will be offset by an increase in subsidy”, which are very welcome news. Furthermore Covered California negotiated with insurance carrier and hospitals wider networks. Over the next months we will see more details and Solid Health Insurance Services will keep you up-to-date of any significant network changes.
Remember that the Open Enrollment Period starts November 15th 2014 and ends February 15th 2014. Hopefully we can give you latest by middle October the information of final rates and networks for your specific region for 2015