Blog: Legislative Mandates Raise Health Care Costs

The 2025 session of the Kentucky General Assembly is now underway.  As legislators examine how they can enhance affordability of health care, one solution is quite apparent − lawmakers can and should halt introducing and passing health insurance mandate bills.

What are health insurance mandates and how do they impact consumers?

Mandates dictate what coverage insurers can sell and what coverage consumers can buy as they relate to specific treatments, benefits, and providers. While often well-intended, government mandates typically result in higher premiums and can reduce access to care. Competition in the marketplace is the better approach to determining the health benefits offered to consumers.

Mandates push up the price of health premiums and there has been an alarming increase in the number of mandates filed in recent legislative sessions.

The Legislative Research Commission issues mandate statements on most mandate legislation to evaluate the per member per month impact of the bills to health care premiums.

2024 was a new record, and not in a good way. If all the mandate bills would have passed, they would have cost a family of four $3,638.88 in additional premiums each year.

Unfortunately, several mandate bills did pass in the 2024 session.  The additional premium costs for a family of four will be over $1,200. 

Small Businesses and Their Employees Are Hardest Hit

Small businesses pay the price for government overreach because they do not have the resources to self-insure and lack bargaining power in the market to achieve lower health insurance premiums. Cost pressures force smaller employers to trim insurance or other benefits to their employees, to increase the share their employees pay for premiums, or to reduce wages or eliminate health coverage altogether.

KAHP will continue to educate legislators and consumers on the costs of health care mandates introduced in the 2025 session.