Massachusetts: Final avg. unsubsidized 2023 #ACA rate changes: Either +9.3% or +7.6%

Massachusetts

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 11 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 September 2022 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 236,000 enrollees in the combined indy/sm. group market.

When you combine all four categories, you get a weighted average rate increase of 9.3% for the combined markets. I should note that even if you separate the two out, you still get almost exactly the same (9.3% for the individual market; 8.9% for the small group market which is only 5% as large).

However...this data only includes on exchange enrollees.  A very different report from the MA Health Connector gives the weighted average rate increase for Unsubsidized and Subsidized QHPs only as being 7.6%.

Advertisement