Governor Cuomo says he’s ordered his Department of Financial Services to reject requests by health insurance companies to raise rates in response to actions by the Trump Administration to weaken the Affordable Care Act.
Cuomo says health insurance carriers have asked for an average of a 24% rate increase, in response to the Trump Administration’s decision to repeal the individual mandate under the Affordable Care Act. That provision required health people to buy insurance in order to stabilize rates for all policyholders.
Cuomo, who is accusing the insurance companies of trying to reap a “windfall profit”, says the rate requests would result in an average $1500 policy increase. And he says it could jeopardize New Yorkers’ efforts to bring the rate of uninsured New Yorkers down to five percent.
“Today I am directing the DFS Superintendent to reject any rate increase attributed to Trump's threatened effect of the loss of the individual mandate participation, ” the governor said. “Insurance premiums must be based on actual cost and not political manipulations. We're not going to allow Trump to tear down our health care system. We've come too far. We're not going back.”
The insurers asking for the premium increase say that, with fewer healthy people in the pool, their costs will go up.