Individual health insurance rates set to drop by up to 60% (Kittery: house, taxes)

[Submariner]

Individual health insurance rates set to drop by up to 60% as a result of Maine health care reform

This is a result of health reform law PL 90 / LD 1333 'the free market based health reform law' was adopted in March 2011.

Individual health insurance rates set to drop by up to 60% as a result of Maine health care reform | The Maine Wire

... “Getting more young people into the market is a major plus for all Mainers and was a primary goal of the law,” Allumbaugh notes. “As this happens, the claims experience tends to improve and it can lower the rates even further for all age groups,” Allumbaugh said.

“This is precisely the impact the health reform law aimed for, lowering rates generally, but in a way that helps our insurance markets reverse the death spiral and begin to grow.”

This should help some folks

[mensaguy]

It looks and sounds good -- until you look at the premiums. I don't know a single person that can afford to pay $900/month for health insurance.

[bangorme]

Originally Posted by mensaguy

It looks and sounds good -- until you look at the premiums. I don't know a single person that can afford to pay $900/month for health insurance.

So, are you saying that the premiums are now $900 a month, or that they are now $1,500 a month?

[mensaguy]

Originally Posted by bangorme

So, are you saying that the premiums are now $900 a month, or that they are now $1,500 a month?

The link shows a premium of $895.55 for a person 60 years old. I'm not sure if that is the old or the new rate.

[Northern Maine Land Man]

Before this new law, a 25 year old nonsmoker in Connecticut was paying 1/4 the rate of the same customer in Maine for the same coverage. Mow the Maine customer will be closer to the CT rate. It's a big saving and may bring new businesses to Maine. It's one of the things we voted for.

[bangorme]

Originally Posted by Northern Maine Land Man

Before this new law, a 25 year old nonsmoker in Connecticut was paying 1/4 the rate of the same customer in Maine for the same coverage. Mow the Maine customer will be closer to the CT rate. It's a big saving and may bring new businesses to Maine. It's one of the things we voted for.

Anything that will make Maine more business friendly, I support. We need jobs here... and the taxes working people pay.

[Submariner]

Originally Posted by bangorme

Anything that will make Maine more business friendly, I support. We need jobs here... and the taxes working people pay.

And the taxes that employers pay.

[Northern Maine Land Man]

The taxes EVERYBODY pays. Free enterprise works and if you allow competition as they do in other states people get better service, better coverage and lower premiums.

[dmyankee]

The free flow of capital, goods and services at free market rates, works every time its tried! God Bless Govenor LePage and the Maine Legislature.

[Coaster]

Originally Posted by mensaguy

The link shows a premium of $895.55 for a person 60 years old. I'm not sure if that is the old or the new rate.

According to the chart at the link, that's the old rate. The new one would be $645.

Since the early 1990s Maine heath insurance laws and regulations have driven insurers out of the state because Maine law demanded that a 55-year-old who jogged 10 miles every other day, kept his weight down, and had no persistent ailments had to pay the same rate as a 55-year-old who was 100 pounds overweight, with diabetes and heart problems. Family rates were similar. I was told once that a family of four in Kittery could move to Portsmouth, NH, and save so much on their health insurance that it would cover their house payment. New Hampshire, of course, allows competition.

I've had two previous governors tell me that they were convinced the Maine laws were written deliberately by Democrats to create the conditions necessary to bring in single payer insurance. I have seen nothing that proved them wrong.

I don't agree with everything the current administration has done, but the new insurance law was a real leap forward IMHO.