OHIO INSURANCE COSTS TO RISE ACCORDING TO REPORT

Insur­ers who plan to par­tic­i­pate in the new health insur­ance exchange are pro­ject­ing their costs to cover Ohioans to be sig­nif­i­cantly higher… that’s accord­ing to an analy­sis released Thurs­day by the Ohio Depart­ment of Insur­ance.

State offi­cials said that means peo­ple should also brace for poten­tially higher costs when pur­chas­ing cov­er­age through the new insur­ance mar­ket­place cre­ated by Pres­i­dent Barack Obama’s health care law.

The state analy­sis did not look at insur­ance pre­mi­ums — the prices indi­vid­u­als would pay. The review exam­ined the cost to insur­ers to pro­vide the required ben­e­fits in the exchange.

Con­sumers can get pri­vate health insur­ance, sub­si­dized by the gov­ern­ment, through the exchange. Open enroll­ment starts Oct. 1, and cov­er­age takes effect Jan. 1, 2014.