Highlighting Michigan’s increasingly competitive health insurance market, the Michigan Department of Insurance and Financial Services (DIFS) has reported that consumers will have more health plan options from an increased number of insurers on the Health Insurance Marketplace for the upcoming open enrollment period.
“As we look toward the end of the pandemic and beyond, it is critical that Michiganders are able to get the affordable, high quality health coverage they need for themselves and their families,” said DIFS Director Anita Fox. “Consumers will have more options to choose from when shopping for health insurance coverage on the Marketplace during open enrollment later this year.”
Covered California’s enrollment continues to surge — with 364,000 signing up since February, more than double normal enrollment rates — as more people sign up for coverage to benefit from the new savings and lower premiums available through the American Rescue Plan.
Lower-income households are getting a quality plan for an average of $35 per month, with more than 738,000 people getting brand-name plans for just $1 per month.
Middle-income consumers, who were previously ineligible for federal financial help, are saving an average of nearly $800 per month and seeing their monthly premiums reduced by more than 70 percent.
Covered California’s increased enrollment includes a higher proportion of African American and Latino Californians, two of the communities hit hardest by the COVID-19 pandemic and ensuing recession.
Those who enroll by Aug. 31 would be insured starting Sept. 1.
DIFS Files Cease and Desist Order Against Health Care Sharing Ministry, Connected Businesses Operating in Michigan
(LANSING, MICH) The Michigan Department of Insurance and Financial Services (DIFS) has issued a cease-and-desist order against a healthcare sharing ministry and two connected companies for allegedly acting in violation of the Michigan Insurance Code.
“Health care sharing ministries can have a role in fostering the health, fellowship, and sense of community for individuals of faith, but they must follow the requirements of the law,” said DIFS Director Anita Fox. “The DIFS investigation showed that the companies under this cease-and-desist order are essentially operating as unlicensed health insurance companies, in violation of the Insurance Code.”
The good news is that the federal Rate Review database has now posted the preliminary avg. 2022 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 Affordable Care Act (ACA) requires that insurers planning to increase plan premiums submit their rates to the Alabama Department of Insurance for review.
The rate review process is designed to improve insurer accountability and transparency. It ensures that experts evaluate whether the proposed rate increases are based on reasonable cost assumptions and solid evidence. The ACA also requires that a summary of rate review justifications and results be accessible to the public in an easily understandable format. The Federal HealthCare.gov Rate Review website is designed to meet that mandate. For more information, see here.
The information is provided in the tables below. Also attached are links to the redacted actuarial memorandum, which support these changes. The rate changes are being proposed and reviewed by the Alabama Department of insurance (ALDOI). As soon as they are final, they may be purchased on the Federal Exchange or through private agents and brokers. The programs will be effective beginning on January 1, 2022.
Having said that, those who don't get vaccinated will start facing more financial penalties soon anyway...a point which is included in the NY Times article above itself:
In 2020, before there were Covid-19 vaccines, most major private insurers waived patient payments — from coinsurance to deductibles — for Covid treatment. But many if not most have allowed that policy to lapse. Aetna, for example, ended that policy on Feb. 28; UnitedHealthcare began rolling back its waivers late last year and discontinued them by the end of March.
This week brings a major change...which actually doesn't change things that much, at least for the big picture.
With the U.S. Census Bureau finally releasing the official county-level results of the 2020 Census, I've updated the graph to include the official April 2020 populations for every county, parish borough and census area in the 50 United States + the District of Columbia (along with the U.S. territories), as opposed to the Census Bureau's July 2019 estimated populations which I had been using until now.
For most counties/etc. this only makes a minor difference one way or the other; in 2,656 out of 3,114 (over 85% of them), the difference is less than 5% higher or lower.
However, there's 153 counties where the official 2020 population is at least 5% higher than what I had. In fact there's 26 counties where the Census Bureau has the population down as more than 10% higher. There's even 4 counties where it's 25% higher or more.
The biggest discrepancy in this direction is Harding County, NM, where the actual population (657) is a whopping 49% higher than the 2019 estimate (441).
Wolf Administration Commemorates Pennie’s Two-Year Anniversary; Encourages Pennsylvanians to Enroll in Health Coverage
Deadline to Receive 2021 Savings on Health Coverage is August 15
Harrisburg, PA – The Wolf Administration today commemorated the two-year anniversary of Pennie, Pennsylvania’s state-based health exchange. To date, more than 335,000 consumers have enrolled for coverage through Pennie and, because of the American Rescue Plan, average premiums after subsidies have dropped by half since the beginning of the year, down to $86 a month.
I'm gonna be posting mea culpas for a few days for missing important ACA-related announcements over the past few weeks.
As I've noted several times before, the American Rescue Plan includes an extremely helpful provision for any American who received unemployment benefits at any point during 2021. The short version is that if you received UI benefits for even a single week this year and want to enroll in ACA exchange coverage, your household income will be defined as being 133% of the Federal Poverty Level for purposes of ACA subsidy eligibility regardless of how high or low your actual 2021 income ends up being.
This means, in turn, that you're eligible for a fully-subsidized ACA exchange plan...that is, there will be at least one Silver plan available for $0/month in premiums after subsidies are applied.
