One health insurance company will continue selling individual policies on Iowa’s Affordable Care Act exchange next year, but Medica proposes a rate increase of 43-point-five percent. If the company pulls out, some 72-thousand Iowans would have no options. Two other providers, Aetna and Wellmark Blue Cross and Blue Shield, abandonded the exchange this spring. Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley says he’s working to return one of them to the fold.
The state is proposing a “stopgap” plan that would revise the A-C-A and keep insurers on the state’s exchange. Wellmark officials say the company’s re-entry would hinge on federal approval of that stopgap. It’s a complicated process, according to Grassley, who says if they can’t sort it all out soon, “we won’t get this job done.”
The U-S House passed a replacement plan for the A-C-A weeks ago, a plan many senators rejected. The Senate, according to Grassley, is making significant progress on its own replacement plan.
