{"id":198,"date":"2026-05-27T16:05:49","date_gmt":"2026-05-27T16:05:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cambridgemovinghub.com\/?p=198"},"modified":"2026-05-27T16:05:49","modified_gmt":"2026-05-27T16:05:49","slug":"small-businesses-face-13-health-insurance-increase","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cambridgemovinghub.com\/?p=198","title":{"rendered":"Small businesses face 13% health insurance increase"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p>Health insurers\u00a0are once again asking small businesses to shoulder hefty premium hikes, tightening the vise of the affordability debate that\u2019s consumed state government heading into election season.<\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/cambridgemovinghub.com\/?p=196\">Youth sports leaders: Ahern Field needs artificial turf<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Insurers collectively want to increase rates nearly 13 percent in 2027, which would be the second straight year with double-digit growth in premiums paid by the many employers and individuals who make up the \u201cmerged market.\u201d The proposals represent an opening salvo in a process that will stretch several months, likely involving negotiations between health plans and state regulators.<\/p>\n<p>The eye-popping numbers land as policymakers confront\u00a0a growing sense of economic malaise\u00a0creeping across the state. Eileen McAnneny, president of the Employer Coalition on Health, warned that employers are \u201cat a breaking point.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cDouble-digit rate increases again this year, in the midst of an affordability crisis, are unacceptable,\u201d McAnneny said. \u201cWe need to address health care costs with an urgency that we haven\u2019t seen to date, or we\u2019ll see fewer small businesses able to afford insurance.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The state Division of Insurance\u00a0published documents\u00a0late Friday afternoon \u2014 with attention already turning to the start of a three-day holiday weekend \u2014 revealing how insurers want to adjust next year\u2019s rates in the merged market, where costs are greater than those faced by larger employers. Altogether, the insurers represent nearly 700,000 members, so changes would affect a smaller subset of people than larger commercial plans or publicly funded coverage like MassHealth.<\/p>\n<p>Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts, which has the most members of the merged market insurers, wants to bump up premiums 15.3 percent next year. Boston Medical Center Health Plan and Tufts Health Public Plans, the second- and third-largest insurers in the group, sought increases of about 12 percent.<\/p>\n<p>The biggest proposed hike came from Fallon Community Health Plan, which has just shy of 30,000 enrollees and wants to raise premiums by a whopping 25 percent. On the other end of the spectrum, Harvard Pilgrim Health Care is seeking a comparatively small bump of 6.7 percent.<\/p>\n<p>Altogether, the proposed changes average out to about 13 percent growth, which would be a bit larger than what regulators approved last year and roughly four times the increase in 2024. Each change, even Harvard Pilgrim\u2019s, would be well above the overall rate of inflation.<\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/cambridgemovinghub.com\/?p=194\">Somerville cuts jobs to close defict<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Massachusetts Association of Health Plans president Lora Pellegrini, whose group represents insurers, attributed the increases to higher costs that insurers themselves are facing, including a growing share of services provided in pricier settings and rising drug prices. \u201cAll of these factors are driving increases in health care premiums,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<p>Insurers had reported significant financial losses in recent years, though the outlook at a few of the largest insurers\u00a0rebounded in the first quarter of 2026.<\/p>\n<p>Individual patients, employers who pay for insurance, and government payers are all increasingly burdened by the rising price of health care. The average family health insurance premium grew from about $7,300 in 2000 to $28,150 in 2024,\u00a0according to the state Health Policy Commission, and premiums continue to increase more quickly in Massachusetts than in the rest of the country.<\/p>\n<p>A set of\u00a0compounding regulatory changes\u00a0have led to the significantly higher rates in the merged market compared to the state as a whole. Jon Hurst, president of the Retailers Association of Massachusetts, said the newest proposed merged market hikes would force many small businesses to pay \u201cwell above\u201d $50,000 in premiums for a single family\u2019s health insurance next year, unless they opt instead for a high-deductible plan.<\/p>\n<p>But he doesn\u2019t think insurers are fully responsible for the strain. Instead, Hurst directed most of his frustration toward lawmakers and the governor.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou can\u2019t blame Washington for this. You can\u2019t blame the insurers, the providers, the health care unions, or Big Pharma,\u201d Hurst said. \u201cYou have to look in the mirror and blame yourselves if you\u2019re Beacon Hill because they\u2019ve done nothing to mitigate these costs and create some level of fairness and affordability, particularly for small businesses.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><em>This\u00a0article\u00a0first appeared on\u00a0CommonWealth Beacon\u00a0and is republished here under a\u00a0Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.<br \/><\/em><\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/cambridgemovinghub.com\/?p=192\">Clover Food Lab will close Thursday<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Health insurers\u00a0are once again asking small businesses to shoulder hefty premium hikes, tightening the vise of the affordability debate that\u2019s consumed state government heading into election season. Read more Youth sports leaders: Ahern Field needs artificial turf Insurers collectively want to increase rates nearly 13 percent in 2027, which would be the second straight year [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":197,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[5,23,123],"class_list":["post-198","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-government","tag-business","tag-economy","tag-insurance"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.6 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Small businesses face 13% health insurance increase - Cambridge Moving Hub<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/cambridgemovinghub.com\/?p=198\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Small businesses face 13% health insurance increase - Cambridge Moving Hub\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Health insurers\u00a0are once again asking small businesses to shoulder hefty premium hikes, tightening the vise of the affordability debate that\u2019s consumed state government heading into election season. 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