New York regulators have approved health insurance rates for 2017, hiking them about 8 percent for small group plans that enroll more than 1 million New Yorkers and almost 17 percent for individual plans with about 350,000 people enrolled.

The Department of Financial Services says rising health care costs and the federal reinsurance program’s termination are pushing up rates.

The department says the approved increases are more than one-fourth less than what insurers’ originally proposed.

Department Superintendent Maria Vullo says premiums are increasing nationally.

She says more than half those buying coverage through the state’s health exchange will get a tax credit offsetting premium increases.

Rate changes won’t affect more than 600,000 lower-income New Yorkers projected to enroll in the exchange’s “essential plan,” with monthly premiums of $20 or less.

(AP)