Senator Coons hosts online townhall
Delaware Senator Chris Coons said Thursday evening during his facebook live healthcare town hall that he has received calls from over 3,500 Delawareans on the battle over health insurance.
This following the announced departure of Aetna which left Highmark as the lone insurer in the marketplace.
Just last month Highmark asked for a 33.6 percent rate increase for 2018, causing residents to ask how high can their premiums get.'
"When I recently spoke with Highmark's leaders, they shared with me that about half of that increase in cost proposed for this year is because of the unpredictability of the market," said Coons.
Coons says the Trump administration is partly to blame for the exodus of Aetna, saying the administration can continue to enforce provisions of the ACA that provide stability in the marketplace, but choose not to.
Moving forward, there is concern that Americans are going to see less affordable insurance going forward and fewer insurance companies in marketplaces. The junior senator believes more stability will help bring more insurance providers back to the Delaware marketplace.
"That's one of the ways we could have kept Aetna in the marketplace, is by keeping the ACA's commitments to provide risk quarter payments, cost sharing payments and reinsurance," said Coons.
Another resident questioned how The First State would fair in a state-by-state solution, as proposed by certain senators.
Because Delaware would have a fraction of federal funding slashed in that scenario, and following its own recent budget problems, Coons says a state-by-state solution would not be the best option.
"That means Delaware right off the top would lose millions of dollars… You saw, perhaps, just how much our general assembly was struggling to close our annual budget gap in the state government. To ask our state government to take on tens of millions of dollars in additional support, I think is something that I'm not ready to stand up and ask them to do," said Coons.
The hope for Coons now is once congress re-convenes, Democrats and Republicans will work together to amend the Affordable Care Act, not repeal and replace. The Senate will reconvene this Monday.
