The insurance rate review process implemented under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act reduced premium costs by approximately $1.2 billion for 6.8 million health insurance consumers in 2012, according to an analysis by the HHS Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation.
The healthcare reform law authorizes HHS to focus on rate increase requests from health insurers that are potentially "unreasonable," which the agency has defined as increase requests of 10 percent or more. Since the rate review laws took effect in September 2011, insurance companies requesting increases of 10 percent or greater must submit a justification to both HHS and their state regulator. In 2012, HHS found about 28 percent of all rate requests of 10 percent or more were modified or rejected in both the individual and small group health insurance markets, according to the report.
In the individual market, the average rate request dropped by 12 percent and saved consumers $311 million. The average rate request increase went down by 19 percent in the small group market, producing $866 million in savings, according to the report.
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