New Hampshire Concerned Obamacare's MLR Reg Will "Disrupt" Individual Health Insurance Market

The Department of Health and Human Services has just announced on its website that New Hampshire has become the second state to request a waiver from Obamacare's Medical Loss Ratio (MLR) regulation.

In its letter to the Secretary of HHS, Kathleen Sebelius, the New Hampshire Insurance Department states that it has only a "single carrier" that "dominat[es]" its health individual insurance market. After Obamacare prohibited insurers from denying child-only polices, New Hampshire explained to insurers that they could not participate in the individual market if they did not offer such policies. The letter to Sebelius states that in response smaller insurers "stated their intention to refrain from participating in the market.

But not only has Obamacare already had an effect on New Hampshire's market, now, the state's insurance commissioner, Roger Sevigny, says that Obamacare's MLR regulation "will disrupt the individual health insurance market" with a waiver.