Gov. Gregoire Talks Health Care on White House Blog

Governor Gregoire

That’s right, whitehouse.gov is the base URL for Governor Gregoire’s blog post about dealing with health insurance rate increases. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services is giving 45 states and D.C. (not a state) $1 million apiece to keep an eye on health insurance premiums, and keep customers apprised of the results.

Washington state’s insurance commissioners generally do the people proud in the watchdog department, pressing for regulation until the insurance company executives cry out from their day spas in annoyance. But you can’t nap for a second: “rates for some individual health plans in Washington increased by up to 40 percent until we stepped in to impose stiffer premium oversight,” writes Gregoire.

To let people know about changes in premiums, Gregoire says, the state will “create a web based consumer website called ‘Consumer Care’ to provide information about the cost and quality of health care.”