It’s not often there is good news about the expense of medical care and health insurance premiums. But the Minnesota Council of Health Plans recently received good news. Expenses for the state’s reinsurance program that helps pay high medical bills for people who buy their own insurance are about half the amount expected. That means there is enough money left over to extend the help into 2020 and 2021.
Then the bad news arrived. Minnesota’s new Gov. Tim Walz didn’t extend the program in his proposed state budget for the next biennium. Instead, he recommended creating a new program to subsidize an individual’s premium.
Jim Schowalter, president of the Minnesota Council of Health Plans, said policymakers will need to decide what’s next. Reinsurance, also called the Minnesota Premium Security Program, helped reduce premiums paid each month by people who buy their own insurance by 20 percent on average in 2018 and again in 2019. Without legislative action to extend the program, premiums will go up this fall, according to actuaries from Oliver Wyman.
Since the launch of Minnesota’s program, Maryland, New Jersey, Oregon, Wisconsin and other states have closely watched Minnesota’s program as officials there work to help people who buy their own insurance.