The data below comes from the GitHub data repositories of Johns Hopkins University, execpt for Rhode Island, Utah and Wyoming, which come from the GitHub data of the New York Times due to the JHU data being incomplete for these three states. Some data comes directly from state health department websites.
A reminder that I made two important changes to the spreadsheet last week:
First, the Johns Hopkins Github archive has finally started breaking out New York City's data into the five separate boroughs/counties
Second, I've finally gone through and separated out swing districts. I'm defining these as any county which where the difference between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton was less than 6 percentage points either way in 2016. There's a total of 198 Swing Counties using this criteria (out of over 3,200 total), containing around 38.5 million Americans out of over 330 million nationally, or roughly 11.6% of the U.S. population.
With these updates in mind, here's the top 100 counties ranked by per capita COVID-19 cases as of Saturday, September 12th (click image for high-res version). Blue = Hillary Clinton won by more than 6 points; Orange = Donald Trump won by more than 6 points; Yellow = Swing District
Today, the CT DOI issued their final rate change rulings, and the difference are pretty dramatic:
Insurance Commissioner Issues Decisions For 2021 Health Insurance Rates
Insurance Commissioner Andrew N. Mais today announced the Department has made final decisions on health insurance rate filings for the 2021 coverage year. As a result of these decisions, approximately 214,600 Connecticut consumers are projected to save $96 million.
The Department approved an average increase for individual plans of 0.01 percent, down from the average request of 6.29 percent. The average increase for small group plans is 4.1 percent, down from the requested average of just over 11.28 percent.
Around 5,500 Trump supporters showed up at an aircraft hanger in Freeland, Michigan (Saginaw County) to hear Donald Trump speak. The almost entirely white crowd may have been outside, but they were tightly packed and few were wearing masks. CNN's Jim Acosta (who did wear a mask properly, over both his nose and mouth) interviewed some of the attendees to ask why they weren't doing so, and the responses are...quite telling (click thru for the actual video):
Me, June 16th, after several months of various state-based ACA exchanges bumping out their COVID-19 Special Enrollment Period deadlines by a month, then another month, then another month:
I admit that this is starting to get a bit silly. At a certain point I'm guessing at least one of the state exchanges will just say "screw it" and open 2020 enrollment up for the full year.
The point of a deadline is a) to prevent people from trying to game the system by deliberately waiting until they're sick/injured before enrolling in coverage (thus driving up premiums for everyone else) and b) to goad people into actually taking action (deadlines do have a clear positive impact on enrollment). With the COVID-19 pandemic having thrown the entire healthcare system into disarray, neither of those seem to be much of a factor this year.
The sections below include a summary of Ohio’s individual market for 2021. The data is based on product filings the Ohio Department of Insurance is currently reviewing.
Ohio’s Health Insurance Market 2021
For 2020, the department approved 10 companies to sell on the exchange. Based on the plan information the department approved, most counties had at least three insurers. 29 counties had two insurers, and just one county had only one insurer.
For 2021, the department approved those same 10 companies to sell on the exchange. Based on those filings, all counties will have at least two insurers and all but 10 counties will have three or more insurers.
Exactly one month ago, I posted an analysis of the preliminary 2021 premium rate filings for Georgia's individual and small group market carriers. At the time, the requests from the individual market carriers ranged from a 22.8% reduction to as much as an 18.3% increase.
I've also repeatedly noted that estimates by the carriers of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic is pretty much all over the place. While a few carriers have indeed baked in significant rate hikes in response to COVID, most either don't mention it at all in their preliminary filings or, if they do, state that they expect the net impact to be negligible. However, they also make sure to hedge their bets by reserving the right to re-file their 2021 requests with adjusted COVID impact.
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.
I've written several times about how Republican Senator Cory Gardner of Colorado has repeatedly shown sickening levels of chutzpah and gaslighting when it comes to the Affordable Care Act:
In a pathetic attempt to gaslight Colorado voters, Gardner is now trying to paint himself as supporting healthcare expansion, going so far as to try to claim credit for passage and approval of last year's Section 1332 Reinsurance Waiver program which dramatically reduced premiums for unsubsidized individual market enrollees throughout Colorado...even though a) he didn't have a damned thing to do with it and b) the reinsurance program was only able to be developed thanks to the Affordable Care Act...which Gardner has repeatedly voted to repeal.
The data below comes from the GitHub data repositories of Johns Hopkins University, execpt for Rhode Island, Utah and Wyoming, which come from the GitHub data of the New York Times due to the JHU data being incomplete for these three states. Some data comes directly from state health department websites.
This week there are two important changes to the list:
First, the Johns Hopkins Github archive has finally started breaking out New York City's data into the five separate boroughs/counties
Second, I've finally gone through and separated out swing districts. I'm defining these as any county which where the difference between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton was less than 6 percentage points either way in 2016. There's a total of 198 Swing Counties using this criteria (out of over 3,200 total), containing around 38.5 million Americans out of over 330 million nationally, or roughly 11.6% of the U.S. population.
With these updates in mind, here's the top 100 counties ranked by per capita COVID-19 cases as of Saturday, September 5th (click image for high-res version). Blue = Hillary Clinton won by more than 6 points; Orange = Donald Trump won by more than 6 points; Yellow = Swing District
If you use Anderson's 7% and assume the final, national weighted average for 2020 comes in at around 0.5%, that means roughly 6.5% of that $93.2 billion could end up having to be rebated to enrollees....or potentially 1/3 of up to $6 billion.
The three-year rolling average means that the actual amount paid out would be 1/3 of that...perhaps $2 billion in September 2020.
As I just noted with my Arizona post, the federal Rate Review database website heavily redacts the rate filing forms submitted by insurance carriers, making it impossible to run a weighted average even when all of the individual and small group market carrier rate change requests are readily available.
The good news is that the federal Rate Review database has now posted the preliminary avg. 2021 rate filings for the individual and small group markets for every state. This makes it very easy to plug in the average requested rate changes in 2021 for every carrier participating in both markets.
The bad news is that most of the underlying filing forms are heavily redacted, meaning I can't use the RR database to acquire the other critical data I need in order to run a proper weighted average: The number of people actually enrolled in the policies for each carrier.
This means that in cases where this data isn't available elsewhere (either the state's insurance department website, the SERFF database or otherwise), I'm limited to running an unweighted average. This can make a huge difference...if one carrier is requesting a 10% increase and the other is keeping prices flat, that's a 5.0% unweighted average rate hike...but if the first carrier has 99,000 enrollees and the second only has 1,000, that means the weighted average is actually 9.9%.
The data below comes from the GitHub data repositories of Johns Hopkins University, execpt for Rhode Island, Utah and Wyoming, which come from the GitHub data of the New York Times due to the JHU data being incomplete for these three states. Some data comes directly from state health department websites.
Here's the top 100 counties ranked by per capita COVID-19 cases as of Saturday, August 29th (click image for high-res version):
Large Decreases in 2021 Premium Rates Expected in Individual Market
CONCORD, NH – The federal government has published information on proposed rates for New Hampshire’s health insurance exchange (https://ratereview.healthcare.gov/) in 2021.
The New Hampshire Insurance Department is reviewing 2021 forms and rates for individual health plans. For 2020, the second lowest cost silver plan was $404.60. The 2021 second lowest cost silver plan proposed premium rate is $318.95. This represents a 21.2% decrease.
It's important to note that the 21.2% decrease only refers to the difference between the 2020 benchmark and the 2021 benchmark plans. They aren't necessarily from the same carrier, and even if they are, that's not the same as the weighted average rate changes for all policies at all metal levels from all carriers.
