Health care use trend may temper premium hikes

Quote: He said this means premiums should keep rising but at lower rates than recently.Aetna Inc. said Wednesday that its second-quarter net income rose 9 percent in part because of the continued slowdown in use of health care services by its members. It earned $536.7 million, or $1.39 per share, in the three months that ended June 30, up from $491 million, or $1.14 per share. Its revenue slipped 2 percent to $8.34 billion.Insurer WellPoint Inc., which also reported results Wednesday, said its second-quarter net income fell to $701.6 million from $722.4 million. Its earnings per share rose nearly 11 percent because it had fewer shares outstanding.CEO Angela Braly said WellPoint was hurt, in particular, in Northern California, where one of its plans attracted more customers with a higher risk profile than they expected because a competitor left the market. But the company overall has seen lower health care use than expected so far this year.Industry-wide, premiums on employer-sponsored insurance climbed a modest 3 percent for family coverage and 5 percent for singles last year, according to an annual study from the Kaiser Family Foundation and the Health Research and Educational Trust.Prices in the individual market can vary by a broader range, and premiums for some policies have grown well beyond 10 percent in recent years.The price a consumer pays for insurance depends on many factors aside from trends like health care use. It can change if a plan's coverage or deductible changes or, for people with employer-sponsored coverage, when a company changes the percentage it pays."Some employers pass the whole increase on to their employees, some eat parts of it," said BMO Capital analyst Dave Shove.Rates for people buying insurance individually can vary based on their age and health and where they live. Rates also can rise and fall depending on the health of other people in a plan's risk pool. If many healthy people in a...
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