OLYMPIA — Residents in two counties — Klickitat and Grays Harbor — may have limited health insurance options next year because no insurers have filed to sell plans there, Washington state’s insurance commissioner said Thursday.
Commissioner Mike Kreidler’s office said that under state law, if no health insurer is available in a particular county, the only option for residents is coverage through the state’s high-risk pool, known as WSHIP. Because WSHIP is not a qualified insurer for the state’s health exchange, subsidies are not available.
Kreidler’s office said that two insurers — Community Health Plan of Washington and Kaiser Foundation Health Plan of Washington Options — announced earlier this year that they were pulling out the 2018 individual health insurance market. But officials with Kaiser said in an email that while they are no longer offering individual off-exchange insurance, they will still offer HMO plans, both on and off the exchange in the state. The commissioner’s office noted that Community Health Plan of Washington and Kaiser Options is not, in fact, offering any plans for 2018, but that Kaiser Foundation Health Plan of Washington (formerly Group Health Cooperative) and Kaiser Foundation Health Plan of the Northwest are the groups offering plans for 2018.
In a written statement, Kreidler said he blamed the proposed drop in insurers and coverage areas to uncertainty surrounding the national health care law.
