MarketWatch: After the Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday that insurers were blaming the health overhaul for portions of their up-to-20-percent premium increases, the White House said its prized legislation was not to blame. In a White House blog post, aide Stephanie Cutter wrote that the increases were already coming before the law, and illustrated the need for the overhaul (Bartash, 9/8).
Read Cutter's blog post here. Also, see KHN's coverage of the Journal's Wednesday report on premium hikes.
Meanwhile, "Maryland's top insurance regulator said Wednesday that most health insurers doing business in the state have not asked for premium rate increases as a result of the federal health care reform law," Washington Business Journal reports. "Beth Sammis, acting director of the Maryland Insurance Administration, said that while her agency has approved rate increases for some insurers that take effect Oct. 1, some insurers did not ask for increases to their premiums in the small-group and individual markets. And some insurers — subsidiaries of Minnesota-based UnitedHealthcare, the state's second-largest insurer — decided to decrease premium charges for some insurance products offered in Maryland" (Graham, 9/8).