Montana: *Approved* 2016 avg. rate hike confirmed to be around 26%

Last month I wrote a quick post about the Montana individual market; with only 3 players, all of whom had requested >10% increases, it was pretty easy to plug the numbers in: 22.2%, 29.3% and 34.0%.

Last week, NBC Montana reported:

Commissioner Monica Lindeen's office says the average rate increase for all plans next year will range between 22 percent and 34 percent. For the popular Silver plan, the increase will range from $80 to $88 a month for a 40-year-old person.

Lindeen said Thursday the rates affect about 41,000 people. They don't include people who receive federal tax credits or those who have insurance through their employers.

The "good" news here is that the affected number is only 41K instead of the 76K I had on record. It's possible that the middle carrier had their rates changed, but overall it looks like the commissioner just signed off on the original requests, for a roughly 26% average increase.

The actual rate changes for every Montana plan (both individual and small group market) can be found here, by the way.

UPDATE: D'oh!! As commenter "intheknow" notes, the quote above clearly states that the "41K" figure doesn't include those receiving tax credits. While that population (around 40,000 people as of 6/30) obviously wouldn't be paying the full rate increase, they'd still see their rates change at least somewhat due to how the subsidies are calculated, so my 76K estimate is still much closer to the mark (81K).