Oklahoma: Preliminary avg. 2021 #ACA premiums: +2.7% indy market, -3.9% sm. group

via the Oklahoma Insurance Dept:

Oklahoma Consumers to Have More Health Options for 2021 ACA Plans

OKLAHOMA CITY – Insurance Commissioner Glen Mulready announced today the 2021 preliminary rate filings for health insurance plans under the Affordable Care Act (ACA). Insurers that currently offer coverage through the Oklahoma Marketplace filed plans requesting average statewide increases of 2.7 percent.

The same three insurers that offered individual health plans on the 2020 Exchange will return for 2021 — Blue Cross Shield of Oklahoma (BCBSOK) , Bright Health and Medica Insurance Company. In addition, Oscar Health, UnitedHealthCare (UHC) and CommunityCare Oklahoma (CCOK) will join the marketplace in Oklahoma for 2021 allowing consumers to have more choices. BCBSOK and Medica offer statewide plans while Bright Health, CCOK, Oscar and UHC serve limited areas of the state.

Moderate rate increase requests and new insurers looking to offer plans in Oklahoma revealed that the Oklahoma insurance market is stable and able to offer multiple health insurance options for all Oklahomans.

“Creating more choices for consumers has been a top priority of mine and it is encouraging to see more insurers enter the Oklahoma market and another year of modest rate change requests. It demonstrates our efforts to stabilize and improve affordability in this market have been working,” Insurance Commissioner Glen Mulready said. “Oklahoma continues to have a healthy, competitive individual health insurance market, and insurers are committed to providing more options for Oklahomans who seek health insurance on the Marketplace.”

Rate filings for 2021 health insurance plans were approved by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) and are posted here. Final approved rates will be made public in September.

If you have questions about other insurance issues, contact the Oklahoma Insurance Department at 1-800-522-0071 or visit our website at www.oid.ok.gov.

Unfortunately, the actuarial memos are redacted and I don't have access to the OK URRT files, so I don't have the enrollment numbers for each carrier and thus can't run a weighted average. The press release above does include the weighted average increase for the individual market (2.7%), but for the small group market the best I can do for now is an unweighted average rate reduction of 3.9%.

Interestingly, while the PR says CommunityCare is new to the OK indy market, their filing does show a small number of existing enrollees (567 policyholders, which likely translates into perhaps 900 covered lives or so).