To Curb Rising Health Insurance Costs, Some States Try 'Reinsurance Pools'

A couple of years ago, the health insurance exchange in Minnesota – MNsure – was in deep trouble. Health insurance premiums for individual policies had shot up by as much as 67 percent, among the steepest increases in the country.  Insurers were abandoning the market, leaving 116,000 Minnesotans with scant choices.

The Minnesota Legislature offered a solution: a $271 million, publicly funded reinsurance pool that would help health insurance companies pay the most expensive medical claims, thereby lowering overall insurance premiums. The hope was that backstopping the insurers would stabilize the market and halt the rocket-like rise in premiums.