Blumenthal
HARTFORD, Conn. (Legal Newsline) -- Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal has announced that he has asked for a postponement of the Insurance Department's public hearing on Anthem's massive proposed health insurance price hike due to a lack of critical evidence.
Blumenthal, in filing a motion Monday to stop the hearing, cited Anthem's failure to deliver critical information and data to support its rate hike. Blumenthal said that a proper analysis cannot be done unless the Insurance Department receives this information.
"This public hearing will be a mirage without critical data on this massive 20 percent rate hike," Blumenthal said. "The Insurance Department must delay or deny this rate increase until it can properly review and analyze all the facts."
According to Blumenthal's motion, Anthem has failed to disclose its methodology for projecting higher medical costs, how much of premium dollars is allocated to surplus, its historical costs among each insurance policy type and dividends paid to its parent company.
"Even if Anthem provides data by the end of today, a fair and adequate review is impossible before Wednesday's hearing," Blumenthal said. "Anthem has a moral, if not legal, obligation to justify this extraordinary policy price increase."
Blumenthal said that, in fairness to the public, the Insurance Department should see Anthem's unit cost, utilization and pure premium data for each of the policy forms, its trend estimates for each of the policy forms, and the methodology used to generate those estimates.
It's important, Blumenthal said, for Anthem to release specific contribution from subscribers' premiums to operating margin by policy and age tier, board-level or committee-level documentation regarding the target surplus levels or ranges, and the company's projections for the amount of dividends to the parent company in the next two years, with documentation on how those numbers are determined.