NEW YORK – It looks like New York residents will have an opportunity to see significant savings in their health insurance plans starting next year.
On Wednesday Governor Andrew Cuomo announced that the Department of Financial Services (DFS) has approved health insurance plan rates for 17 insurers seeking to offer coverage through New York’s Health Benefits Exchange, including eight new entrants into the market that do not currently offer commercial health insurance plans.
Last year, Governor Cuomo took action to issue an Executive Order establishing the New York Health Benefit Exchange, which is expected to help more than one million uninsured New Yorkers access quality, affordable health care coverage.
On average, the approved 2014 rates for even the highest tier of plans individual New York consumers could purchase on the exchange (gold and platinum) represent a 53 percent reduction compared to last year’s direct-pay individual rates. The fact that these average individual rates are effectively being cut more than in half is primarily because a greater number of uninsured individuals are expected to obtain coverage in the individual insurance market – lowering overall premiums.
Despite the fact that health care costs per capita are approximately 18 percent higher in New York than the national average, the average approved rates for the benchmark individual “silver plan” in New York would be in line with (nearly 10 percent lower) the nationwide average previously forecast by the independent, non-partisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) for when health care reform is implemented.
For more information about the New York Health Benefit Exchange, please visit, HealthBenefitExchange.ny.gov.
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