North Carolinians will have to wait a little bit longer to see exactly how much individual health insurance purchased through the new North Carolina federally facilitated exchange will cost.
CNN Money reports that FirstCarolinaCare, a non-profit health insurance carrier and newcomer to North Carolina’s individual health insurance market, plans to release its premium rates for the insurance plans it will sell on North Carolina’s federally facilitated exchange. FirstCarolinaCare will likely publish the rates on their website. Although other states, particularly those with state-run exchanges, have already published their rates, little is known about what North Carolina’s exchange plans will look like or how much they will cost. North Carolina insurers planning to sell health insurance through the exchange have declared the details of the rates to be trade secrets. A trade secret is generally information that a business owns and from which the business derives competitive or economic value. North Carolina has adopted a modified version of the Uniform Trade Secrets Act and recognizes trade secrets as business or technical information under the North Carolina Trade Secrets Act of 1990. See this publication by the North Carolina Bar Association for some general information on trade secrets.
Only Blue Cross Blue Sheild of North Carolina, Coventry Health Care and FirstCarolinaCare will offer individual plans through North Carolina’s exchange. Since the insurers (with the apparent exception of FirstCarolinaCare) do not consider their rates final until approved by the federal government, it is unlikely that North Carolina consumers and employers will get much information about the plans being offered until the exchange opens on October 1, 2013. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services expects to complete approval of insurance premiums for the federally facilitated exchanges in September.
