If you purchase health care in Virginia through the Obamacare marketplace, you might want to budget out a bit more in monthly payments this year.
Individual customers will be paying, on average, 11% more this year than last. And up to 20% more next year. Virginia lawmakers heard that news during a meeting of the state’s Health Insurance Reform Commission.
“When average household income is going up perhaps a percent. That’s an unsustainable curve.”
State Senator Frank Wagner is a Republican from Virginia Beach.
“When you start talking about what you can do to help the middle class. One of the things we’ve got to do is get a handle around this unsustainable cost curve.”
But David Shea, with Virginia’s Bureau of Insurance, says the marketplace is still in relative infancy -- only three years into a major change in a big market.
“You would hope that, over time, you don’t see a 2-percent rate increase then a 14-percent rate increase. You see more like a 6 to 8 to 10 -- something that’s more predictable and more stable.”
As far as rates being lower than they have been in the past? Shae says not to expect that any time soon.
