The South Carolina Insurance Dept. released their final/approved 2021 Individual and Small Group Market premium rate changes.
I actually never got around to analyzing the preliminary rate filings for SC, so I don't actually know whether any of these are changes from the original filings, but whatever. In the end, the Palmetto State's individual market premiums will be dropping by about 1.5%, while their small group rates will be increasing by 4.7% on average.
It's also worth noting that UnitedHealthcare of SC is joining the South Carolina small group market for the first time next year (not to be confused with "UnitedHealthcare Insurance Co." and "UnitedHealthcare Insurance Co. of the River Valley...no confusion there I'm sure...)
Last March I wrote an analysis of H.R.1868, the House Democrats bill that comprises the core of the larger H.R.1884 "ACA 2.0" bill. H.R.1884 includes a suite of about a dozen provisions to protect, repair and strengthen the ACA, but the House Dems also broke the larger piece of legislation down into a dozen smaller bills as well.
Some of these "mini-ACA 2.0" bills only make minor improvements to the law, or make improvements in ways which are important but would take a few years to see obvious results. Others, however, make huge improvements and would be immediately obvious, and of those, the single most dramatic and important one is H.R.1868.
The official title is the "Health Care Affordability Act of 2019", but I just call both it and H.R.1884 (the "Protecting Pre-Existing Conditions and Making Health Care More Affordable Act of 2019") by the much simpler and more accurate moniker "ACA 2.0".
Yes, that's right: Not only did they lop 50,000 people out of the loop entirely, the other 90 - 100K enrollees will also be subject to...wait for it...work requirements. Well...sort of; keep reading.
First, it looks like they'll have to apply to at least 48 employers as well. So...what, if they get hired by the first one they still have to apply with 47 more?
Note that it says "and" before the fourth item, not "or"...which means all of them will have to register online, complete a training assessment, apply to at least 48 companies and complete an online training course.
...Oh by the way, one more thing: The minimum wage in Utah is $7.25/hour.
The South Carolina Insurance Dept. released their final/approved 2020 Individual and Small Group Market premium rate changes a few days ago.
Previously, I only had the unweighted averages, which were a 1.9% decrease on the Indy market and an 11% increase for small group enrollees...but SCDOI has included the weighted averages for each in their approved numbers: A 3.9% drop and 7.6% increase respectively.
It's also worth noting that the Individual market is growing from three carriers to five next year--both Bright Health Co. and Molina Healthcare are joining the South Carolina market for the first time.
But that's not all! In addition to the actual 2018 MLR rebates, I've gone one step further and have taken an early crack at trying to figure out what 2019 MLR rebates might end up looking like next year (for the Individual Market only). In order to do this, I had to make several very large assumptions:
(sigh) I'm into the home stretch with only a handful of states left to go. Unfortunately, South Carolina is yet another state where the actual enrollment numbers are either missing or redacted, making it impossible to run a properly weighted average...but again, the range between the three carriers offering individual market policies is so narrow that it doesn't make much difference anyway (between -3.72% and +0.17%).
The unweighted average is a 1.9% reduction in unsubsidized premiums statewide.
On the small group market, however, average 2020 premiums are jumping by double digits: 11.1%.
Back in August, Blue Cross Blue Shield of South Carolina, the only carrier offering policies on SC's individual insurance market, asked for a 9.2% average premium rate increase for 2019 statewide. This consisted of 9.3% for their most popular plans (which cover over 200,000 South Carolinans) and 6.9% for 6,800 BlueChoice plan enrollees (BlueChoice is only available off-exchange).
2019 PRELIMINARY HEALTH INSURANCE PLANS RATE CHANGES FOR INDIVIDUAL MARKET COVERAGE
The SCDOI has approved the rates and forms for health insurance issuers that are planning to offer ACAcompliant products in the individual market in 2019.
The only confusing thing about South Carolina's 2019 rate filings is that I'm not sure whether the "BlueChoice Health Plan" should be rolled in with the main Blue Cross Blue Shield of SC population. Carriers often have multiple listings in the same state for different policy lines, but they're generally listed under the same official corporate name. In this case, "BlueChoice" (which is clearly still part of BCBS) has a completely seaparate listing.
The BCBS filing clearly states the number of enrollees as around 203,000 people. The BlueChoice listing doesn't give a membership number, but appears to be roughly 6,800 people based on the full premium dollars they received in all of 2017 ($53.5 million divided by 12 months, divided by the statewide average of $654/month this year). This doesn't really make much difference, however, since BCBS still holds nearly 99% of the market anyway.
Assuming an 11.5% #ACASabotage factor (mandate repeal + shortassplans), this translates into unsubsidized enrollees having to pay an extra $900 than they'd otherwise have to (a 9.2% rate increase instead of a 2.3% rate drop).
Now that it appears that the full list of states and counties eligible for hurricane (or windstorm, in the case of Maine) Special Enrollment Periods (SEP) has settled down, Huffington Post reporter Jonathan Cohn asked an interesting question:
How if at all do you allow for the extensions in FL, TX, etc.? Or, to put another way, how many post-Dec 15 signups through https://t.co/bhGNSognZK do you expect?
The closest parallel to this particular situation I can think of was the #ACATaxTime SEP back in spring 2015. In that case, it was the first year that the ACA's (defunct as of this morning) Individual Mandate was being enforced, and a lot of people either never got the message about being required to #GetCovered or at least pretended that they didn't.
A couple of weeks ago, a joint letter was sent to all four Congressional leaders from AHIP (America's Health Insurance Plans), the BlueCross BlueShield Association, the American Academy of Family Physicians, the AMA, the American Hospital Association and the Federation of American Hospitalsm warning them, in no uncertain terms, of what the consequences of repealing the individual mandate would be:
We join together to urge Congress to maintain the individual mandate. There will be serious consequences if Congress simply repeals the mandate while leaving the insurance reforms in place: millions more will be uninsured or face higher premiums, challenging their ability to access the care they need. Let’s work together on solutions that deliver the access, care, and coverage that the American people deserve.
