When setting premiums for next year, insurers baked in bigger-than-usual adjustments, driven in large part by a game-changing rule: They can no longer reject people with medical problems.
Popular in consumer polls, the provision in the health law transforms the market for the estimated 14 million Americans who buy their own policies because they don't get coverage through their jobs. Barred from denying coverage, insurers also can't demand higher rates from unhealthy people and those deemed high risks because of conditions including obesity, high blood pressure or a previous cancer diagnosis.
But the provision also adds costs. To a larger degree than other requirements of the law, it is fueling the “sticker shock” now being voiced by some consumers about premiums for new policies, say industry experts.
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