An interesting e-mail came into my box recently from Consumers Union.  CU looked at 50 state insurance department web sites and recorded what each state is doing to alert its residents to health insurance rate increase requests, and allow consumers to have an avenue for input. This follows the finalization of a rule on September 1, 2011 requiring states to post on their websites insurance companies’ requests for rate increases of greater than 10% and provide a way for consumers to submit comments on the rate requests. 

Of course, I immediately scrolled down to Ohio and here’s what it says:

No information about rates or rate review.

Only seven other states had the same notation:  Alaska, Georgia, Louisiana, Tennessee, Texas, Utah and Wyoming.   

What is particularly disturbing about Ohio’s lack of progress is that in the fall of 2010 Ohio received $1 million to expand its rate review capacity, and $4 million was added in 2011.  Here is one of Ohio’s commitments from 2010:

Make More Information Publicly Available…The State intends to develop a consumer friendly web application, located on the department’s website to assist consumers in using and understanding the rate filing information. http://www.healthcare.gov/news/factsheets/2010/08/rateschart.html

Meanwhile Ohio’s Insurance Commissioner Mary Taylor submitted comments earlier this week to the Federal Insurance Office  [FIO]on a number of issues being considered by  the FIO such as consumer protection, uniformity in regulatory standards among states and assessments of an insurer’s financial health.  Taylor stated: “… The [Ohio] Department has been nationally accredited for 20 years and is focused on a strong balance between protecting consumers without over-regulating the industry.”

It is time for Ohio’s Insurance Commissioner  to  implement the strong consumer protections that the Affordable Care Act created.  Take a look at Oregon’s web site, http://www.oregonhealthrates.org/#search_form.  Rate requests are displayed, even those that do not exceed  the federal threshold of 10%.  You can see the percent of increase that was actually granted.  You can read the comments of consumers.  Or go to Colorado’s web site: http://doraapps.state.co.us/Insurance/Consumer/pages/reviewProcess.aspx   Look at the easy to read timeline for comments and decision-making. 

It’s time for Ohio to move forward instead of backward, follow the law, and keep our commitments.  Or maybe it’s time to ask HHS to divert the money that is not being used to build a consumer friendly website and give it to an Ohio non-profit who would.  I can think of a number.