Kaiser Family Research and Minnesota paper say Wisconsin could have done more to Lower ObamaCare Rates.

There are reasons for the different, higher rates in Wisconsin, compared to Minnesota. 

Minnesota still have a state high risk pool, where Wisconsin is ending them. Medicaids expansion in Minnesota will dump fewer risky people into the Marketplaces. 

Yet there are other reasons for the difference, documented here:

NEWiProgressive: Over the weekend an analysis by the St. Paul Pioneer Press, which includes yet to be published Kaiser Family Foundation research confirmed Citizen Action of Wisconsin’s October report documenting vast differences between Minnesota and Wisconsin in the cost for health insurance on the individual insurance marketplace created by the Affordable Care Act.

The Citizen Action report released in late October, A Tale of Two States: Why Wisconsin’s Health Insurance Individual Marketplace Premiums are Dramatically Higher than Minnesota’s, shows that two critical decisions made differently in the two states explain a substantial portion of the rate disparity.  The full report can be downloaded here.

An important note about possible rate leveling:

To some extent, the premium differential between the Twin Cities and western

Cick to enlarge...interactive map at St. Paul link above.

Wisconsin should moderate in 2015, Coleman said.

By that point, Minnesota likely will have closed its high-risk pool and healthier individual market consumers in Wisconsin will have merged into the individual market operating under Affordable Care Act rules.

Back in Stillwater, insurance agent Dennis Conger said he's heard a lot of the explanations being offered for the difference between rates in the two states. But the extent of the variation remains surprising, Conger said, though he admits to lacking full information about how insurance companies are setting premiums.