If you did, you can thank the Affordable Care Act. When you buy health insurance- the percentage of your premium dollars that your insurance company spends on providing you with health care (as opposed to what it spends on administrative, overhead, and marketing) is called a “Medical Loss Ratio”. The Affordable Care Act limits how much of your premium dollar your insurer can spend on things besides your care. They’re supposed to give you a rebate on the portion of premium that was over the limit. The law requires insurers selling policies to individuals or small groups to spend at least 80% of premiums on direct medical care (and efforts to improve the quality of care). Insurers selling to large groups (usually 50 or more employees) need to spend 85% on care and quality improvement.
The Medical Loss Ratio part of the Affordable Care Act kicked in this year. So far, about 400,000 Arizona residents with private insurance coverage received a total of almost $28M in refunds from insurance companies.
A very sensible act considering the consumer’s best interest in mind. Hope other countries also follow the suit making health insurance more accessible to their citizens.