MNsure and the Department of Commerce announced yesterday the rates for the insurance plans that will become available on the exchange October 1st, and it was great news: Minnesota has the lowest average rates in the country based on all the states that have made their rates public. A young non-smoker in the Twin Cities could get a plan for less than $91 a month, and that’s before subsidies are included.
It’s important to remember that for the vast majority of people in Minnesota, this rate announcement doesn’t affect them directly: everybody who gets insurance through their employer will continue to get it through their employer. But for the approximately one million people who don’t get insurance through their employer, this is great news.
I wasn’t paying too much attention to the naysayers yesterday, but I think the gist of the complaining was that a $91 dollar a month plan is more expensive than a $60 high-deductible catastrophic insurance plan available today. And that’s true, because it’s not an apples to oranges comparison: the $91 plan has an out-of-pocket maximum of $6,350 compared to $15,000 for the catastrophic plan, and also includes more benefits like mental health coverage, pharmacy benefits, and maternity care. Is it worth it to pay another $30 a month to guarantee a $9,000 lower out of pocket maximum? I’d say yes.
This is only the beginning, of course, and there’s a long ways to go in terms of our health care system. But this is more evidence that the ACA will not be the catastrophe that some people have been claiming.