Michigan Health Insurance Premiums Continue Their Rocket Ride

Unbelievable!

Michigan policy-makers do have alternatives to complying with out of control self-interested industry wish lists, though.

The Hill's opinion piece offers a way out of stratospheric prices, and restores patient/clinician autonomy as well.

The bold font highlighting essential points is mine. 

https://thehill.com/opinion/5083520-make-america-healthy-again-movement/

How making health insurance ‘insurance’ again will improve health care

01/14/25 

The Make America Healthy Again movement challenges our nation to recognize that health insurance, health care, and health are fundamentally distinct.

Past health policy reforms, largely focused on health insurance, have neither improved health care nor made Americans healthier. To make America healthy again, we must restore health insurance to its original purpose.

Insurance exists to protect beneficiaries from unexpected financial risks. It is not intended to cover routine, predictable or elective events, as this would make premiums prohibitively expensive.

For example, were a car insurance policy to cover oil changes, or were a home insurance policy to cover faucet repairs, they would be priced out of the market.

But when it comes to health, regulations are forcing insurers to cover analogously uninsurable items. Many politicians aim to expand health coverage to all health care products and services — even air conditioning — while minimizing patients’ out-of-pocket costs.

This approach deprives patients of decision-making power and providers of autonomy. Consequently, competition and innovation have stagnated, prices and premiums have risen, and health outcomes have worsened.

Industries lobby aggressively because regulators, not patients, make decisions that affect industry profits. Even without intentional capture, regulations are typically regressive, favoring incumbents that can afford compliance costs. This leads to more regulations, greater consolidation, higher prices, fewer choices and worse access.

Health insurance should return to its original purpose: protection against major unpredictable financial risks, such as motor vehicle accidents, strokes and heart attacks. Primary care, generic drugs, routine care and elective surgeries — which make up the majority of health care spending — should be paid for in cash using pretax funds from health savings accounts or HSAs.

This reform would slash premiums while relieving patients of financial worry. All Americans should have access to HSAs, which allow individuals and private entities to contribute, with tax benefits. To protect low-income, high-risk individuals, taxpayers should fund reinsurance programs to stabilize their premiums and directly subsidize their HSAs.

When cash is the primary form of payment for care, and insurance is reserved for covering significant financial risks, transformative changes would follow.

First, patients controlling their health care dollars would no longer face insurance restrictions on provider options, gain equal access to care at non-discriminatory cash prices, and make informed, cost-conscious decisions that reflect their specific preferences. With more skin in the game, they would also be motivated to invest in preventive efforts to fundamentally improve their health.

Second, when paying for care becomes as straightforward as buying coffee, entry barriers would collapse, regulatory capture would diminish, price competition would intensify, and innovative care options would flourish to meet patients’ diverse and evolving needs. A dynamic, accessible, and personalized ecosystem for patient-centered care would emerge.

Third, providers would be freed from pre-authorizations, denials, appeals and other restrictions and burdens that have led to financial loss, burnout and missed opportunities to deliver optimal care. Physicians across specialties have increasingly opted out of certain insurance plans. This trend would reverse under the proposed system, expanding access to all patients regardless of their insurance status.

Finally, the labor market and economy would benefit. When workers control their health care dollars, purchase insurance locally, and pay for other health care needs through HSAs, employers are relieved of the burden of purchasing insurance. This shift would enhance worker mobility, simplify hiring and spur innovation and entrepreneurship.

Flat-rate direct primary care, concierge practices, cash-pay surgical care, telehealth and prescription drugs are already flourishing. These models adopt transparent and competitive pricing, attracting both uninsured patients and those who bypass their insurance. Top-down regulatory restrictions cannot suppress the bottom-up demand from patients and providers to transact directly, without intermediaries.

The Make America Healthy Again movement opens an opportunity window toward a dynamic, innovative, accessible U.S. health care ecosystem. We can either maintain the status quo — which constrains providers from competing fairly and freely for patients, insurers from offering plans patients want, and patients from accessing the care they want to be healthy — or unshackle all of them by restoring health insurance to its true nature: being insurance.

Josh Puthumana is a surgical resident at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. Ge Bai is a professor of accounting and health policy at Johns Hopkins University.

Rocketing health care premia are a national problem:

https://www.theepochtimes.com/business/2026-health-insurance-premiums-could-see-largest-hike-in-5-years-report-5889326

https://www.healthsystemtracker.org/brief/individual-market-insurers-requesting-largest-premium-increases-in-more-than-5-years/

2026 Health Insurance Premiums Could See Largest Hike in 5 Years: Report
Finalized 2026 rate changes are expected to be published later this summer.
By Wesley Brown - July 23, 2025

The nation’s health-care marketplace insurers are seeking the largest premium increases in more than five years, ahead of the upcoming Affordable Care Act (ACA) enrollment period in November, according to an analysis by the Peterson Center on Healthcare and health policy nonprofit KFF.

The July 18 report highlights several factors driving up insurance rates for 2026, as major health insurers submit rate filings to state regulators to justify premium changes for the upcoming calendar year.

“As in most years, rising healthcare costs—both the price of care and increased use—are a significant driver for increasing rates going into plan year 2026. The costs of healthcare services like hospitalizations and physician care, as well as prescription drug costs, tend to go up every year, and insurers often raise premiums to cover their increased costs,” the report states.

The Peterson–KFF analysis examined insurers in the District of Columbia and 19 states: Connecticut, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Rhode Island, Texas, Vermont, and Washington.

Finalized 2026 rate changes are expected to be published in late summer, and individuals will be able to see how their plans’ premiums are changing just before open enrollment begins in November.

The report states that heading into 2026, insurers expect that some policy changes will drive up their costs, increasing premiums beyond what they would otherwise be. Among these changes are enhanced ACA premium tax credits, which make coverage more affordable and will expire at the end of 2025, resulting in an average increase of more than 75 percent in out-of-pocket premium payments. The impact will vary depending on income and family composition.

“This is expected to cause healthier enrollees to drop their coverage and create a sicker risk pool,” the report states.

An earlier Peterson–KFF analysis found that the expiration of enhanced premium tax credits increased proposed rates by an average of 4 percent. It also stated that there would be gross premium increases, as healthier people are expected to drop their coverage in larger numbers due to increases in their net premium payments.

“Unless the premium tax credits are extended, consumers can expect increases in both the net premium payments and gross premiums,” the June 3 report states.

The Congressional Budget Office projects that, on average, gross benchmark silver premiums will ultimately be 7.9 percent higher than they would otherwise be as the risk pool becomes sicker, on average, and that many enrollees will become uninsured.

Tariffs could also drive up the cost of certain drugs, medical equipment, and supplies, the July 18 report stated. It further notes that some insurers report that tariffs—and the uncertainty surrounding them—are causing rate increases.

A June 18 KFF report stated that Optimum Choice of Maryland, Independent Health Benefits Corporation of New York, and UnitedHealthcare of New York are increasing premiums by 2.4 percent, 2.9 percent, and 3.6 percent, respectively, due to the impact of tariffs on pharmaceuticals.

Many insurers submitted proposed rates before Congress passed the budget reconciliation legislation and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services finalized its rule on marketplace integrity and affordability. The legislation and new Medicaid rule, which explain how the ACA marketplace operates and how individuals enroll, were only finalized recently, and it is still unclear how insurers might respond, the report states.

“Early indications are that individual market insurers will be increasing premiums in 2026 by more than they have since 2018, the last time policy uncertainty contributed to sharp premium increases,” the July 18 Peterson–KFF report states. It noted that premiums are increasing by a median of 15 percent across the 20 markets it analyzed.

Another factor creating uncertainty in the rate filing process is the implementation of the Trump administration’s ACA integrity rule. Based on what insurers have filed so far, this does not generally appear to be driving rate changes in either direction, according to the report.

“Insurers and state regulators are still finalizing rates for the upcoming plan year, so these filed premium increases may change,” it states.