Vermont health regulators weigh double-digit premium hikes
VTDigger
The Green Mountain Care Board plans to release 2024 rates for individual and small group health insurance plans purchased through the state exchange next week. Insurers have requested increases in the double digits due to rising health care costs.
Public advocates are bracing for a decision next week by the Green Mountain Care Board on 2024 health insurance premium rates for state marketplace individual and small group plans.
Even if the board trims requests by the marketplace’s two health insurance providers, premium costs would still go up significantly.
“For regular Vermonters, the cost of health care was already verging on unaffordable,” said Charles Becker, an attorney with Vermont Legal Aid’s Office of the Health Care Advocate, during a board hearing on the rates last month. He warned of a “catastrophic affordability crisis on the near horizon” that would cause more people to go without insurance coverage.