New York. Governor David Patterson recently signed a bill into law that reinstates the New York State Insurance Department’s authority to review and approve health insurance premium increases before they take effect. The law will apply to all rate increases taking effect on or after Oct. 1, 2010. Since 2000, New York had regulated health insurance premiums under a law that limited the state’s ability to disapprove health insurance premium increases and allowed the insurance industry to self-regulate. The new law also requires health insurers to spend more of every premium dollar on medical costs and not administrative expenses. Under the federal Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, health insurers will be required to report justifications for “unreasonable” rates increases, as well as the percentage of premiums spent on claims, quality of care, taxes, and administrative costs. In addition, the Department of Health and Human Services recently announced the availability of $51 million in Health Insurance Premium Review grants under the Affordable Care Act. For more information, visit http://www.ins.state.ny.us/.

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This entry was posted by Adam V. Russo on Monday, June 28th, 2010 at 1:32 pm and is filed under Health Care Legislation, New York. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.