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The Daily Tar Heel

BCBS to end grandfathered plans, Student Blue not affected

Blue Cross and Blue Shield Insurance of North Carolina will no longer offer grandfathered healthcare plans as of 2018. 

 The change will affect 50,000 North Carolinians with grandfathered plans, which means they went into effect before the Affordable Care Act was signed into law.

Student Blue health insurance coverage will not be affected by these changes, according to an email from Lew Borman, a spokesperson for Blue Cross Blue Shield. 

Customers affected will be notified by mail in October. 

In a blog post about the decision, Gary Bolt, BCBS vice president of sales and marketing, wrote that BCBS will help connect users to Affordable Care Act plans comparable to their existing plans with BCBS. 

BCBS customers who held plans before the signing of the Affordable Care Act were able to keep those plans rather than switching to ACA coverage.   

Bolt wrote that the decision came from the number of customers dropping their grandfathered plans and the growing expense of insuring an increasingly elderly population. 

In 2010, grandfathered plans covered over 330,000 BCBS customers, but the number has decreased each year since. 

Bolt wrote that in order to be able to keep offering the plans in 2018, rates would have to increase significantly to compensate for the lower number of policy holders and the rising cost of providing care to those still covered.

Many customers with grandfathered plans will be able to receive increased coverage with more benefits, like maternity coverage, after switching to the ACA.  However, the new plan will cost more than most customers are currently paying with BCBS.  

“We believe that a portion of our affected customers will qualify for subsidies to offset the cost increase,” Bolt wrote.

“Comparing current year premiums for grandfathered plans to premiums for an ACA plan next year, young men and women over 50 will generally pay more for ACA coverage, while older men and young women will pay less.” 

BCBS is the only insurance provider that currently provides ACA insurance coverage in all 100 counties in NC. The majority of customers losing their grandfathered plans will have no choice but to re-enroll with BCBS.  

“Some customers will have fewer in-network providers in their new plan,” Bolt wrote. “That’s because, in some areas of North Carolina, we no longer offer a broad network product to our Affordable Care Act customers.” 

A blog post written in May by Brian Tajlili, director of actuarial and pricing services with BCBS NC, said customers with ACA plans will face an average rate increase of 22.9 percent for 2018, but the number has since been lowered to 14.1 percent. This follows a 24.3 percent rate increase from 2016 to 2017.  

Tajlili wrote the increase is due to a higher cost of covering claims as well as an apparent decrease in federal funding. 

Starting in 2018, there will not be federal funding for cost-sharing reductions, which help lower-income customers pay deductibles and other out-of-pocket costs, Tajlili wrote.  

state@dailytarheel.com

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