The fact that NY has had the highest-priced individual premiums in the country, and why that was, may be why the costs in that state appear to be coming down. This Washington Post column gives some good insights:
"....New York has, for two decades now, had the highest individual market premiums in the country. A lot of it seems to trace back to a law passed in 1993, which required insurance plans to accept all applicants, regardless of how sick or healthy they were. That law did not, however, require everyone to sign up, as the Affordable Care Act does.
New York has, for 20 years now, been a long-running experiment in what happens to universal coverage without an individual mandate. It’s the type of law the country would have if House Republicans succeeded in delaying the individual mandate, as they will vote to do this afternoon.
The result: a small insurance market with very high insurance premiums.
(My note as I see it: Fewer people in the risk-sharing pool to pay for the higher-risk, more expensive patient claims in the pool means each one pays for a bigger piece of the claims-payout pie. With more payers, their slice of the claims/expenses pie would be less.)
For years New York has had one of the most heavily regulated insurance markets in the country.
The 1993 reforms not only required insurers to accept all customers; they also mandated that insurers charge everyone the exact same price. Young or old, healthy or sick, it doesn’t matter in New York: Everyone gets the same deal.
This is great for someone who is sick and old who, in other states, might get charged a sky high rate or rejected altogether.
It’s not great though for the young and healthy, who end up footing a bigger chunk of the bill for all those more expensive beneficiaries......"
Here’s why health insurance premiums are tumbling in New York