Massachusetts: Preliminary avg. 2022 #ACA rate changes: +6.9% (indy & sm. group)

Massachusetts, which is arguably the original birthplace of the ACA depending on your point of view (the general "3-legged stool" structure originated here, but the ACA itself also has a lot of other provisions which are quite different), has 9 different carriers participating in the individual market. MA (along with Vermont) has merged their Individual and Small Group risk pools for premium setting purposes, so I'm not bothering breaking out the small group market in this case.

Getting a weighted average for Massachusetts is trickier than in most states, for a couple of reasons. The good news is there's an August 2021 enrollment report which breaks out exactly how many MA residents are enrolled in each carrier's policies. However, the numbers are actually broken into 4 different categories: Small Group (which, again, is merged with the individual market in MA); "ConnectorCare" individual market policies; subsidized Qualified Health Plans and unsubsidized QHPs.

I've done my best to combine all of these as appropriate for a grand total of around 280,000 enrollees in the combined indy/sm. group market.

However, some of the carriers get a bit confusing...there's 2 different "Fallon" divisions, but only one of them appears in the report (Fallon Health) and neither of them shows up on the RateReview.HealthCare.Gov database as of this writing. The same is true of Blue Cross Blue Shield of MA (HMO Blue)...it's not listed at RR.HC.gov. Finally, "Tufts" has 3 different divisions but I can only find 2 of them so I've done my best to plug the numbers in as appropriate.

With all these caveats in mind, as far as I can tell, both individual and small group market plans in Massachusetts are looking at roughly a 6.9% rate hike on average next year (of course, these are preliminary changes only; they may change upon final approval by state regulators):