Legislators Hear From Other States on Regulating Insurance Rates

Lund Report:

Maine and Rhode Island require public hearings before an insurance company can raise its rates

February 10, 2011 -- Oregon could learn a thing or two from Northeast states when it comes to insurance rate review, according to experts from around the country and close to home who testified before the Senate Committee on Consumer and Small Business Protection Monday.

Rep. Chip Shields (D-Portland), who has started two businesses of his own, urged his colleagues to consider rate reviews as a means of increasing transparency and reining in rates that he said were “crushing the entrepreneurial spirit” in Oregon.

“This is too important to small business to happen behind closed doors,” he said.

Senator Charlie Ringo and insurance economist Larry Kirsch addressed legislators about the still-unresolved lawsuit Kirsch’s wife Karen brought against Regence BlueCross BlueShield for its 26% rate increase on individual health plans in 2008.

Lawmakers also heard from several experts who sang the praises of public rate review hearings, in which representatives of insurance companies must hold a public hearing and explain why their proposed rate increases are justified. Sabrina Corlette of the Georgetown University Health Policy Institute; Barbara Niehus of Niehus Actuarial Services; and Deborah Chollet, a senior fellow at the Mathematica Policy Institute joined the hearing by phone.

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