It’s rate-filing season for health insurance companies, and this week marked the deadline for carriers to disclose proposed rate increases of at least ten percent for 2016 Obamacare plans sold on the individual market. Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina made the cut.

Now that insurers must accept any applicant, regardless of health status, premium increases are not all that surprising. But an average 25 percent spike?

As a result, the insurer is seeing a trend where one in five customers have signed up for coverage, paid the first month’s premium, used services, and then dropped their plan. So, of the 397,000 second-round BCBS exchange enrollees thus far, the net figure really equates to around 317,600.

The individual market could very well remain on precarious footing over the next couple of years. Since the Obama Administration urged insurers to extend pre-ACA plans until 2017, the anticipated versus actual Obamacare risk pool for 2014 didn’t quite match up. Many policyholders – especially the young and healthy, decided to hold onto these plans, creating a higher-risk 2014 enrollment mix.

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The timing of this news combined with a number of anti-Obamacare legislators supporting bills that call for more coverage mandates doesn’t look too good politically. It’s important to note that a majority of the state’s insured population – those who are either self-insured through their employer or benefit from government payers like Medicare or Medicaid – are exempt from additional state-regulated health benefits. However, the remaining non-group policyholders and those on employer-purchased plans will feel an even deeper burn in their pockets if these bills make their way through the legislative process.