An insurance agent of my acquaintance tells me that policies with maternity benefits are experiencing the biggest hikes.  Because only women get pregmant, that reminded me of a recent state law that drove up premiums for women.  In 2008, the legislature passed a bill mandating a number of benefits, of which at least one, unlimited gynecological testing beyond that which is medically indicated, was expected to be very expensive.  Since that time, the legislature has entertained more mandated benefits, which drive premiums up.

The Los Angeles Times quotes a Blue Cross spokesman who claimed that healthy people are forgoing health insurance if they lose their jobs, leaving relatively sicker people in the policies.

This may make sense for the healthy people: Federal and state law discourage continuous coverage, because an employer must offer health benefits to all its employees without discrimination.  In the small-group market, insurers must offer policies to every small group in a region at almost the same rates, no matter what their employees’ health status is. 

So, if you got laid off from your job at Cisco or Hewlett-Packard, you can go without insurance, and then form a garage-based hi-tech start-up of two or three people, and apply for group coverage whenever you decide it serves your needs.

So, there are a number of possible explanations for what’s behind this rate hike.  Anthem’s “greed” is not a plausible one.


This blog post originally appeared on StateHouseCall.org.