Health insurance rate hikes hit Minnesota as open enrollment begins
Add Axios as your preferred source to
see more of our stories on Google.
Illustration: Sarah Grillo/Axios
Sticker shock is expected to spread fast this open enrollment season.
The big picture: After eating rising costs for everything from eggs to electricity in recent years, many Minnesotans are bracing for another price jump they can't avoid: their health insurance rates.
📈 What's happening: Minnesotans buying insurance on the state's Affordable Care Act individual marketplace, called MnSure, starting next month will see an average premium increase of 22%, per the state Department of Commerce.
Threat level: Those costs — which represent the largest rate hikes in nearly a decade — could go up even more for the roughly 90,000 Minnesotans who qualify for the premium tax credits at the center of the federal shutdown fight.
- Commerce commissioner Grace Arnold told lawmakers last week that eligible Minnesotans could see costs soar by $2,000 a year if the credits expire as planned at the end of the year.
💼 Price tags of health plans at private employers are also on the rise, leading some workplaces to trim benefits or pass some of the price increases onto employees.
- "Small group" premiums for Minnesota employers with under 50 workers will go up 14% on average, while large private employers across the nation expect premium costs to jump as much as 10%, as Axios has reported.
- A forecast from Mercer found that 51% of employers plan to shift some of those cost increases to workers this year, up from 44% last year.
Plus: Premiums for some Minnesota state workers will jump about 17% under contracts approved this summer.
- And a recent Minnesota Star Tribune analysis of Medicare Advantage plans found double-digit premium increases — and fewer choices — for some popular plans for seniors.
Between the lines: Brooks Deibele, a Minneapolis-based executive vice president with benefits consultant Holmes Murphy, recently told the Star Tribune that "there's not one silver-bullet answer to control cost."
- That's because multiple factors — including high-priced drugs, increasing labor costs and general inflation — contribute to the trend.
- The impact of tariffs on prescriptions and supplies could add even more cost pressure moving forward.
Zoom out: It's not just Minnesota. Increases are starting to hit home nationwide as state-run marketplaces post their rates.
- Preliminary filings showed Affordable Care Act premiums on track to rise by a median 15% next year across the nation.
Zoom in: The divided Legislature struck a deal to extend a state program called reinsurance this spring, preventing an even bigger increase from hitting people who get their coverage from the individual market.
What's next: Open enrollment for the individual market in Minnesota starts Nov. 1.
- Many private employers' periods for picking plans run between October and December.
Axios' Maya Goldman and Tina Reed contributed to this report.