Patrick Getzen: ACA causing BCBS premiums to rise

Regarding your July 8 business story “$295M payout to Blue Cross”:

The story implied that because Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Carolina expects to receive a sizable payment from the federal government, our company should not need the rate increase we filed with the N.C. Department of Insurance. The fact is that even with the payments, we still lost more than $120 million on our ACA business in 2014. It’s also important to know that these payments were already factored into our requested rates.

To suggest that receiving funds we had already accounted for should indicate a smaller rate increase is simply wrong.

The rate increase we are seeking for our 2016 ACA plans reflects the fact that these customers continue to be sicker and use more health care than our individual customers have historically. And the trends aren’t getting better so far in 2015.

Our ACA customers are visiting the emergency room more often and using expensive emergency care and imaging services. As long as these trends continue, premiums can only increase.

While we appreciate The News & Observer’s commitment to sharing developments about the ACA, nobody benefits from overly simplistic conclusions that set unrealistic expectations. Taking meaningful steps to reduce the cost of health care continues to be our industry’s most urgent priority. And, unfortunately, it’s an area where we have received very little help from the ACA.

This story was originally published July 9, 2015 at 5:05 PM with the headline "Patrick Getzen: ACA causing BCBS premiums to rise."