Only insurer on Wyoming ACA exchange requests average 8% premium increase

Individual health plans on Wyoming’s Affordable Care Act exchange could rise an average of 8 percent next year if Blue Cross Blue Shield of Wyoming — the state’s only on-exchange insurer — sees its rates approved.

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The Cheyenne-based insurer covers 24,000 residents in the state, according to the Casper Star Tribune. In addition to its on-exchange individual plan hikes, BCBS of Wyoming requested a 1.94 percent decrease on its on-exchange small group plans and a less than 1 percent decrease on off-exchange small group plans. BCBS of Wyoming also requested a 6.74 percent increase on its off-exchange individual plan.

Freedom Life Insurance, subsidiary of Fort Worth, Texas-based USHEALTH Group, requested a 17.4 percent increase on its off-exchange individual plans. 

Last October Wyoming’s health insurance exchange lost its only other participant, Cheyenne-based WINhealth, when it shuttered over financial losses.  

Wyoming and six other states — Arkansas, Alabama, Kansas, North Carolina, Oklahoma and South Carolina — will only have one insurer per rating region in all the state’s rating regions next year. 

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