Senator Looney Calls Out Insurance Industry Over Skyrocketing Health Care Premiums

HARTFORD – Senate President Pro Tempore Martin M. Looney (D-New Haven) today issued a strong statement following the Connecticut Insurance Department’s public hearing on health insurance rate requests from Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield, ConnectiCare, and United/Oxford.

In a letter to Connecticut Insurance Department Commissioner Andrew N. Mais, Looney condemned the insurers, hospitals, and pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) for repeatedly seeking unaffordable rate hikes while failing to take responsibility for controlling costs or protecting Connecticut patients.

“The requested increases, which range from 5.9% to 26.1%, are significantly higher than the requests last year which were also unaffordable,” Looney said in the letter. “These highly profitable companies again failed to provide convincing evidence to justify their rate requests.”

Looney pointed to the disproportionate burden on older enrollees and the record profits of insurers. “About one-third of the affected enrollees are between ages 55 and 64, a group already paying some of the highest premiums in the market. Elevance, Anthem’s parent company, made a $6 billion profit in 2024. Even while having to spend billions to recover from a cyberattack, United Healthcare showed a $14 billion profit in 2024.”

He criticized insurers, hospitals, and PBMs for finger-pointing rather than taking responsibility. “The insurers, the hospitals, and the PBMs point at each other but take no responsibility themselves. The insurers, the Pharmacy Benefit Managers (PBMs), the hospitals, and the drug manufacturers all profit from the system at the expense of the patients who are the appropriate beneficiaries the system is supposed to serve. We need to change course and put the patient back in the center.”

The Senate President called for bold action to put patients back at the center of the system, including:

• Capping contract price increases at the level of inflation between insurers and hospitals, with contracts made public.
• Implementing site-neutral pricing to reduce hospital outpatient costs significantly.
• Limiting negotiated rates to no more than 200% of Medicare for any procedure.

Looney also highlighted research from the Kaiser Family Foundation showing that traditional Medicare operates far more efficiently than private insurers, with administrative costs below 2%, compared to nearly 17% for Medicare Advantage and other private plans.

“If the insurers cannot protect patients from unaffordable price increases, it is time for the state to step in.”

Read the full letter here.