The state’s two main health insurance providers are seeking a more than 8 percent increase in rates next year, and state officials say the requests underscore the need for comprehensive health care reform.

Blue Cross Blue Shield of Vermont, which currently has in effect Health Connect policies that cover 70,000 Vermonters, and MVP Health Plan, which covers fewer than 7,000, sought approval for the premium hikes in recent filings with the Green Mountain Care Board.

The board, which has jurisdiction over policies sold on the state-run exchange, will hold hearings in July and has until Aug. 9 to decide to approve, modify or reject the proposed increases.

Blue Cross’ request is 40 percent higher than the increase its policyholders were hit with last year; MVP’s proposal is triple the increase its customers saw between 2015 and 2016.

“I think this points out how important it is to stay on this long-term path that we know leads to cost containment,” said Lawrence Miller, chief of health care reform for the Shumlin administration.

Miller has spent the last few years pushing for an overhaul of a payment scheme that compensates doctors for the volume of the procedures they perform, as opposed to impact of that care on the health of their patients.

“The (Affordable Care Act) did a lot with coverage and making sure people were covered. That didn’t do a lot for costs,” Miller said.

Vermont Health Connect gives access to health insurance policies to individuals who are not covered by insurance through their employers or through government programs like Medicare or Medicaid. That’s still the bulk of the market.

Although exact market share data is incomplete, tallies by state agencies and consultants show that more than 300,000 Vermonters get health insurance through their jobs and more than 190,000 are covered by Medicaid.

If Vermont is going to tackle the cost problem, Miller said, then it needs to eliminate the “perverse incentives” he says are driving up the cost of care.

Blue Cross officials say the rising cost of care is responsible for about half the proposed increase.

They blame higher-than-expected claims from people getting policies on the exchange during the first two years of Vermont Health Connect for the remainder of the spike.

But the rate request from Blue Cross for plans sold on Vermont Health Connect might not be as bad as it sounds.

“That’s actually quite good, compared to what we’re expecting to see across the country,” said Cynthia Cox, associate director for health reform and private insurance at the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, a health policy organization in Washington, D.C.

Plans in Oregon are slated for average increases of nearly 30 percent, for instance. Al Gobeille, chairman of the Green Mountain Care Board and a business owner himself, said the proposed rate increase from Blue Cross isn’t sustainable in the long run. But he said rates generally are trending in the right direction.

“Ten years ago in my company, I was seeing 15 percent rate increases. These are basically half that,” Gobeille said.

Gobeille and Miller stress that the rate requests now will undergo a review process; the Green Mountain Care Board, as it did last year, might end up reducing those rates if it determines they aren’t justified.

Gobeille said the state ultimately needs to bring rate increases in line with inflation.

To get there, Gobeille said, the state needs a successful payment reform initiative.

He said the state also needs to do something about an underfunded Medicaid system.

Every year, about $400 million in private insurance premiums are used to prop up government-subsidized insurance programs that don’t cover the cost of care for patients covered by them.

As long as private insurance holders’ premiums are used to subsidize government programs, Gobeille and Miller said, it will be difficult to deliver rate relief.

Betsy Bishop, executive director of the Vermont Chamber of Commerce, said rate increases of the sort Blue Cross is proposing will hurt the business community.

“We need to understand what is driving the costs that are driving those premium rates for businesses. An 8 percent increase is not sustainable,” Bishop said.

Bishop said one of the surest ways to lower those costs is to give companies a wider range of insurance products to choose from.

“Vermont has a pretty strong track record for narrowing those choices for businesses and individuals,” Bishop said.

Valley News staff writer Rick Jurgens contributed to this report.