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Addressing concerns about rising premiums and dwindling competition, Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Burwell asserted Thursday that the federal health law's insurance markets clearly are sustainable. Willingness by Congress to help smooth out problems would definitely help, Burwell told reporters, but it is not absolutely essential. Congressional Republicans committed to repealing "Obamacare" are unlikely to assist. (9/1)

Burwell also mentioned HHS is seeking to increase enrollment by working with the Internal Revenue Service to contact people who paid a penalty for not having coverage and providing information about how to enroll on the exchanges. HHS and other federal agencies have also worked to reduce “data matching” errors that may have prevented eligible people from signing up for coverage. (Carey, 9/1)

The question of whether Congress would need to step in to fix ObamaCare has risen in prominence since announcements by Aetna, UnitedHealthcare and other large insurers saying they will pull out of ObamaCare exchanges next year because of financial losses. But Congress remains deadlocked in political fighting over the law, raising the stakes for changes the administration is taking on its own. “Stability exists even using the administrative tools that we have,” Burwell said. (Sullivan, 9/1)

Many of next year's premium rate increases on the Affordable Care Act exchanges threaten to surpass the high and wildly fluctuating rates that characterized the individual insurance market before the health law took effect, interviews with insurance regulators and records show. With dramatic drops in insurance company participation on the exchanges for some states, decreased competition and other factors are leading to often jarring rate hikes. Some of the states that are facing what are likely among the biggest increases this year — Tennessee, Arizona and North Carolina — were among those the Urban Institute reported in May had the biggest increases last year. (O'Donnell and Leys, 9/1)

Minnesota health insurers are proposing hefty average premium hikes next year for plans sold to individuals and families. Blue Cross Blue Shield of Minnesota's HMO, Blue Plus, is seeking hikes ranging from 36 percent to 67 percent. HealthPartners proposes average increases of 43 percent and 51 percent. UCare's average is 66 percent.Medica is seeking 59 percent, and PreferredOne wants an average of 63 percent more for an individual plan with children's dental coverage. (Catlin and Sepic, 9/1)

Insurers are asking to raise premiums by an average of more than 50 percent for customers on Minnesota’s individual insurance market. Massive proposed premium increases weren’t a surprise, coming on the heels of national market turmoil, the end of a federal subsidy for insurance companies and the withdrawal of a major insurer from Minnesota’s market. These new proposed rates would affect only people who buy individual insurance plans. About 300,000 Minnesotans are in that category, of whom 70,000 buy their plan through the state-run MNsure exchange and 230,000 directly from insurers. (Montgomery, 9/1)

One of the state's newest health insurance companies, Community Health Options, is pulling out of New Hampshire. Community Health Options is the exact type of business that was supposed to make the individual insurance market more competitive under the Affordable Care Act. In 2014, the first year it was in operation, Community Health Options dominated the individual market in Maine. In 2015, it expanded into New Hampshire with a federal loan. (Rodolico, 9/1)

Despite much hand-wringing about health insurers exiting the marketplaces where people buy individual coverage, in many areas consumers will likely still have a choice of plans when the 2017 open enrollment starts in November. Aiming to make picking a plan easier, the federal government, which runs the marketplaces in roughly two-thirds of states, is encouraging insurers to offer “simple choice plans” as an option this fall. The six new standardized plan designs will eliminate many of the moving parts that have bedeviled consumers trying to make apples-to-apples comparisons between plans. (Andrews, 9/2)