Senate HELP committee discusses stabilizing the individual markets in rural America

Today, the Senate HELP committee held the second in a series of four hearings on Stabilizing Premiums and helping individuals in the individual insurance market for 2018. This week’s panels included State Insurance Commissioners and a Bipartisan panel of Governors. Both panels included a robust discussion about the need for market stabilization in rural America and the unique challenges faced in the rural individual insurance market. NRHA is pleased both panels included representation from a number of rural states that were able to speak to these challenges and ensure the concerns and challenges facing rural Americans were included in the discussion.

NRHA worked closely with Senators on the HELP committee to provide information and questions, this information was utilized by a numbers of Senators and led to a robust exchange supporting the need for rural solutions to the marketplace problems.

Additional panels are scheduled for next week including a Tuesday, September 12th panel on state flexibility and a Thursday September 14th panel of health care stakeholders. The HELP committee has indicated a strong desire to craft bipartisan legislation to provide market stabilization. NRHA has been meeting with Senators and their staff and providing information about the rural marketplace and the impact of the lacking stability within these markets. We will continue to monitor these hearings and legislation being developed by the Senate.