2019 Rate Hike Project Wrap-up: FINAL/APPROVED rate changes for Alabama, Mississippi & Utah

I realize this may seem a bit late in the game seeing how the 2019 ACA Open Enrollment Period has already started, but I do like to be as complete and thorough as possible, and there were still 9 states missing final/approved premium rate change analyses as of yesterday which I wanted to check off my 2019 Rate Hike Project list.

Fortunately, RateReview.HealthCare.Gov has finally updated their database to include the approved rate changes for every state, which made it easy to take care of most of these. Making things even easier (although not necessarily better from an enrollee perspective), in three states the approved rates are exactly what the requested rates were for every carrier: Alabama, Mississippi and Utah:

In short, all I had to do with my spreadsheets for these four states is update the labels from "requested" to "approved":

Assuming my estimates of the impact of the individual mandate being repealed and short-term & association health plans being expanded are accurate (10 - 14% depending on the state), this means that unsubsidized enrollees will be paying an average of $800 - $1,100 more apiece next year than they'd otherwise have to.