Over at healthinsurance.org, Louise Norris has already done the work for me in tracking down the preliminary 2021 individual and small group market rate changes for the state of Maine:
Average premiums expected to decrease Maine’s exchange in 2021
Maine’s three individual market insurers filed proposed rates for 2021 in June 2020 (average proposed rate changes are summarized here by the Maine Bureau of Insurance). For the second year in a row, average rates are expected to decrease for 2021:
House Democrats on Monday passed a bill that would bolster the Affordable Care Act by hiking premium subsidies and incentivizing states to expand Medicaid.
UPDATE 9/29/20: There have been several important developments in the #TexasFoldEm case since I posted this back in June.
For one thing, another 81,000 Americans have died of COVID-19 and another 4.7 million Americans have tested positive for it.
For another, Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has passed away, and Donald Trump has already formally nominated an ultra-right wing zealot who is on the record as wanting the ACA to be struck down to replace her. His nominee's confirmation hearings have already been scheduled to start in mid-October, meaning that there's a very good chance that she'll be confirmed by the GOP-controlled Senate before Election Day...in which case the Texas Fold'em case to strike down the entire ACA could end up being the very first case she hears as a U.S. Supreme Court Justice on November 10th.
With this in mind, I figured this would be a good time to re-up the analysis below.
Here's my weekly update of the spread of COVID-19 across all 50 states, DC & PR over time, from March 20th through June 27th, 2020, in official cases per thousand residents.
I've given up trying to tie every trend line to the state name; it simply gets too crowded near the bottom even with a small font size, so I've grouped some of them together where necessary.
Note that this graph doesn't take into account any of the rumored undercounts in Florida, Georgia etc...these are based on the official reports from the various state health departments. If and when those are ever modified retroactively I'll update the data accordingly.
I've highlighted the three states with the ugliest increases in per capit cases over the past week or so (Arizona, Florida and Texas), along with New York and Michigan for reference.
Click the image itself for a high-resolution version.
Note: The sudden jumps in New York and Massachusetts reflect reporting methodology changes; MA started including probable COVID-19 cases, while New York added a batch of 15,000 positive antibody tests results they hadn't been previously including.
Now that I've brought all 50 states (+DC & the U.S. territories) up to date, I'm going to be posting a weekly ranking of the 40 U.S. counties (or county equivalents) with the highest per capita official COVID-19 cases and fatalities.
Again, I've separates the states into two separate spreadsheets:
Most of the data comes from either the GitHub data repositories of either Johns Hopkins University or the New York Times. Some of the data comes directly from state health department websites.
Here's the top 40 counties ranked by per capita COVID-19 cases as of Saturday, June 27th:
Yesterday, the Trump Administration formally submitted their official brief with the Supreme Court of the United States asking SCOTUS to completely and fully strike down the entire Patient Protection & Affordable Care Act. This is the latest development in the utterly insane "California vs. Texas" lawsuit (formerly "Texas vs. U.S.", "Texas vs. Azar", or as I prefer to label it, "Texas Fold'em", a name originally coined by U of M law professor Nicholas Bagley but which doesn't seem to have caught on with anyone other than me so far.
I've written about this completely absurd lawsuit more times than I care to remember, but as a reminder, here's what it comes down to.
The image below is the "3-legged stool" of the Affordable Care Act.
The blue leg represents the various patient protections which the ACA requires health insurance carriers to provide--guaranteed issue, community rating, essential health benefits and so on.
For the past few months, I've been keeping track, to the best of my ability, of how many people have been enrolling in ACA exchange policies utilizing the COVID-19-specific Special Enrollment Periods which have been offered by 12 of the 13 state-based exchanges (SBEs). My most recent update brings the grand total of confirmed SEP enrollments to at least 260,000 across 8 states, averaging around 3,500 per day.
The actual number is obviously higher than this, of course, since I don't have any data from the other four state exchanges (DC, New York, Rhode Island and Vermont), although three of those four are pretty small anyway...and even in New York, their unique "Essential Plan" (the Basic Health Plan program established under the ACA itself) has likely been sucking up the bulk of individual market enrollees earning up to 200% FPL anyway...and you can enroll in the Essential Plan year-round regardless of the pandemic. I therefore doubt that NY's COVID SEP numbers for those earning more than 200% FPL are that dramatic. All told, I'd expect NY, RI, VT & DC to only add perhaps another 25,000 or so QHP enrollees to the table below:
Nothing remotely surprising here, but it's still good to remind people of what sort of "healthcare plans" would run rampant if the ACA is struck down by the GOP's lawsuit this fall:
E&C Investigation Finds Millions of Americans Enrolled in Junk Health Insurance Plans that Are Bad for Consumers & Fly Under the Radar of State Regulators
Investigation Uncovers Troubling Tactics to Mislead Consumers into Signing Up for These Plans & then Denying or Rescinding Coverage for Medical Care
Washington, D.C. – Energy and Commerce Chairman Frank Pallone, Jr. (D-NJ), Health Subcommittee Chairwoman Anna G. Eshoo (D-CA) and Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee Chair Diana DeGette (D-CO) today released a report on the Committee’s year-long investigation into the anti-consumer practices of Short-Term, Limited Duration Insurance (STLDI) health care plans and the insurance brokers who sell and sign people up for these junk plans.
OK, this surprised me a bit: #HR1425, the Patient Protection & Affordable Care Enhancement Act, has already received a 10-year budgetary impact score from the Congressional Budget Office. I don't think this is a formal score--the whole thing is only five pages and includes minimal text accompanying it, so it might be just a "draft" score or something. I presume that if Mitch McConnell were to shock everyone and actually give it a vote in the Senate (which won't happen), there would likely have to be a second, more elaborate scoring process done by the CBO first. Then again, perhaps not.
Anyway, in a nutshell, the CBO report on the House version of H.R. 1425 comes to the following conclusions regarding the budget impact and other, related results of the bill being implemented nationally. Keep in mind that this assumes that the bill became law and was implemented starting in 2021; the score includes the 10 year period from 2021 - 2030:
TITLE I: Lowering Healthcare Costs & Protecting People w/Pre-Existing Conditions:
OK, I don't know if I "scooped" everyone with my H.R. 1425 explainer yesterday or what, but the House Energy & Commerce Committee just now sent out an official press release announcing the bill, along with a one-page summary, more detailed explainer and the link to the text itself. It's kind of interesting to see what language they use and which sections they emphasize, espeically as compared & contrasted with my own write-up:
Health Committee Chairs Unveil Legislative Package to Make Health Care & Prescription Drugs More Affordable
Legislation Also Expands Access to Health Care, Protects People with Pre-Existing Conditions & Reverses Administration’s Ongoing Sabotage of the ACA
Health Connector extends enrollment an additional month to July 23rd for uninsured individuals
On June 22, 2020, the Health Connector announced in an Administrative Bulletin an extension to the special enrollment period in response to the coronavirus (COVID-19) emergency through July 23, 2020 to assist uninsured Massachusetts residents seeking health coverage. (The extended enrollment period was previously set to end June 23.)
On April 14th, Covered California reported that 58,000 residents had enrolled in ACA exchange coverage during their COVID-19 Special Enrollment Period, of which roughly 20,000 did so via standard SEPs (losing coverage, moving, getting married/divorced, etc), while an additional 38,000 took advantage of the COVID-specific SEP.
Back in early March (a lifetime ago given the events of the past few months), House Democrats were on the verge of finally voting on a suite of important ACA protections, repairs and improvements which I've long dubbed "ACA 2.0" (the actual title of the first version of the "upgrade suite" bill was ridiculous when it was first introduced in 2018, and the slightly modified version re-introduced in 2019 was somehow even worse, no matter how good the bill itself was).
The game plan was to hold a full floor vote in the House on H.R. 1884 (or possibly a slightly different variant) the week of March 23rd, 2020 to coincide with the 10th Anniversary of the Affordable Care Act itself. This would have made perfect sense both symbolically as well as policywise, as the ACA desperately needs a major upgrade (and it would've needed one even without years of Trump/GOP sabotage, I should note).
The big story re. the coronavirus pandemic the past week or two is how it's shifting from the mostly northeastern states ravaged by it from March - May to now hitting the sunbelt, south and southwestern states in June (and likely July). With that in mind, here's graphs showing the cumulative per capita increase in positive COVID-19 cases and fatalities over time in the 5 states with the highest cases (all of which happen to be Dem-controlled, w/the exception of Massachusetts having a Republican governor) vs. the 5 states with the highest percent increase in cases over the past week (all of which happen to be GOP-controlled).
I've also included the per capita cumulative testing for each as well, since it's reasonable to expect positive cases to increase as testing ramps up. The critical thing to look for is whether the rate of the upwards curve is greater for testing or new cases. If the testing rate is increasing faster than the case rate, that's a Good Thing. If the case rate is increasing faster than the test rate, that's a Bad Thing.
Now that I've brought all 50 states (+DC & the U.S. territories) up to date, I'm going to be posting a weekly ranking of the 40 U.S. counties (or county equivalents) with the highest per capita official COVID-19 cases and fatalities.
Again, I've separates the states into two separate spreadsheets:
Most of the data comes from either the GitHub data repositories of either Johns Hopkins University or the New York Times. Some of the data comes directly from state health department websites.
Here's the top 40 counties ranked by per capita COVID-19 cases as of Saturday, June 20th:
Happy Father's Day. Here's my weekly update of the spread of COVID-19 across all 50 states, DC & PR over time, from March 20th through June 21st, 2020, in official cases per thousand residents.
I've given up trying to tie every trend line to the state name; it simply gets too crowded near the bottom even with a small font size, so I've grouped some of them together where necessary.
Note that this graph doesn't take into account any of the rumored undercounts in Florida, Georgia etc...these are based on the official reports from the various state health departments. If and when those are ever modified retroactively I'll update the data accordingly.
Click the image itself for a high-resolution version.
Note: The sudden jumps in New York and Massachusetts reflect reporting methodology changes; MA started including probable COVID-19 cases, while New York added a batch of 15,000 positive antibody tests results they hadn't been previously including. Michigan's probable cases have been retroactively added into each daily total.
Statement from Peter V. Lee on Protecting Individuals from Discrimination Based on Categories Like Gender Identity and Sexual Orientation
SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Covered California Executive Director Peter V. Lee released the following statement following the federal administration’s June 12 rule that eliminates preexisting federal rules protecting individuals from discrimination based on categories like gender identity and sexual orientation:
“Covered California continues to make quality health care coverage more accessible and affordable to Californians of all ages, religions, abilities, sexual orientation, gender identities, races, ethnicities and national origins. We’ve built upon the Affordable Care Act’s landmark market reforms to ensure that no one can be turned away from coverage, and that once enrolled they would have access to affordable, high-quality care.
Regular readers may wonder why I've spent so much time obsessively tracking not just the spread of COVID-19 (as numerous sources have been doing) but specifically the partisan spread of it between so-called "red" vs. "blue" states and even red vs. blue counties.
I've obviously never been shy about sharing my political leanings on this website, but a public health crisis shouldn't be a partisan issue, right?
That's correct: It shouldn't be. Unfortunately, the Trump Administration has decided to make it a partisan issue at every stage of the crisis, and with few exceptions, the rest of the GOP has embraced this at the federal, state and even local levels.
As a result, public health POLICY is being directly influenced and in many cases flat-out mandated by PARTISANSHIP.
In the earlier stages of the pandemic hitting the United States, this could be seen in cases like favoratism being shown in which states the federal government was sending PPE (personal protection equipment) to and which states were being given zilch (or, in some cases, broken ventilators and moldy N-95 masks).
CORONAVIRUS EMERGENCY SPECIAL ENROLLMENT PERIOD DEADLINE EXTENDED TO JULY 15
More than 43,000 have enrolled since mid-March
The Maryland Health Benefit Exchange announced today that it has extended the deadline of its Coronavirus Emergency Special Enrollment Period so that uninsured residents will have until July 15 to enroll in health coverage through Maryland Health Connection, the state’s health insurance marketplace.
The deadline extension comes as more than 43,000 residents have received coverage during this special enrollment period that began in March with Gov. Larry Hogan’s announcement of a State of Emergency in Maryland. Even before this extension, Maryland already offered one of the longest special enrollment periods in the country since the emergency began.
Regular readers may have noticed that after a 3-4 month hiatus, I've recently started writing several stories touting "ACA 2.0"-type bills again over the past week or so.
For the most part, however, I've settled on WorldoMeter for the state-level data and Johns Hopkins U for the county-level data, as each source formats their data in the most convenient manner for my purposes in porting it to my spreadsheets.
Back in April, I noted that the DC Health Link ACA exchange had announced what appeared to be a special enrollment period specifically intended for employees of small businesses via the ACA's SHOP program, through September 15th, 2020:
DC Health Link Expands Opportunities to Get Covered During Public Health Emergency
Monday, April 6, 2020
Responding to COVID-19 pandemic, DC Health Link permits uninsured employees of DC small businesses that offer health insurance through DC Health Link to get covered now
Note: This is a guest post by Miranda Wilgus, Executive Director and Co-Founder of ACA Consumer Advocacy (disclosure: I'm on the ACACA board of directors).
In the middle of June 2020, with over three months of an international pandemic behind us, over 100,000 Americans and more around the world dead from Covid19 and its complications, what are we waiting for? We know that our administration has done everything possible to impede the facilitation of needs and resources to our country. Special interests are running rampant, price gouging is the norm, government agencies have been scooping up supplies from states that are desperately needed, and the GOP controlled Senate is more focused on packing courts with unqualified idealogues than with passing bills to assist Americans financially affected by the pandemic.
Due to the COVID-19 emergency, Vermont Health Connect has opened a Special Enrollment Period until May 15, 2020. During this time, any uninsured Vermonter can sign up for a Qualified Health Plan through Vermont Health Connect. Qualified families can also get financial help paying for coverage.. Please call us at 1-855-899-9600 to learn more.
And now, with the June 15th deadline having come and gone, lo and behold:
Governor Andrew M. Cuomo today announced low-risk youth sports for regions in phase three of reopening can begin on July 6th with up to two spectators allowed per child.
For several years now, I've been urging Congress to upgrade the Affordable Care Act via a series of major improvements. Most notable among these is the need to #KillTheCliff...that is, to eliminate the so-called "Subsidy Cliff" which kicks in for ACA individual market enrollees who earn more than 400% of the Federal Poverty Line (roughly $50,000 for a single adult or $103,000 for a family of four).
As I've explained many tmes, the ACA's subsidy structure works pretty well for those earning between 100 - 200% FPL, and is at least acceptable for those earning 200 - 400% FPL (in fact, thanks to #SilverLoading, it works quite well for most of that population as well). The real problem kicks in above 400% FPL (and to a lesser extent below 138% FPL for those living in the 14 states which still haven't expanded Medicaid). In addition, the subsidy formula still doesn't make policies truly affordable for many of those receiving them.
In short, both the upper- & lower-bound Subsidy Cliffs need to be eliminated, and the underlying formula needs to be strengthened as well.
Now that I've brought all 50 states (+DC & the U.S. territories) up to date, I'm going to be posting a weekly ranking of the 40 U.S. counties (or county equivalents) with the highest per capita official COVID-19 cases and fatalities.
Again, I've separates the states into two separate spreadsheets:
Most of the data comes from either the GitHub data repositories of either Johns Hopkins University or the New York Times. Some of the data comes directly from state health department websites.
Here's the top 40 counties ranked by per capita COVID-19 cases as of Sunday, June 14th:
As promised, here's my weekly update of the spread of COVID-19 across all 50 states, DC & PR over time, from March 20th through June 14th, 2020, in official cases per thousand residents.
I've given up trying to tie every trend line to the state name; it simply gets too crowded near the bottom even with a small font size, so I've grouped some of them together where necessary.
Note that this graph doesn't take into account any of the rumored undercounts in Florida, Georgia etc...these are based on the official reports from the various state health departments. If and when those are ever modified retroactively I'll update the data accordingly.
Click the image itself for a high-resolution version.
Note: The sudden jumps in New York, Massachusetts and Michigan all reflect reporting methodology changes; MA & MI started including probable COVID-19 cases, while New York added a batch of 15,000 positive antibody tests results they hadn't been previously including.
Hardly surprising given how vile the current administration is about everything else, but still a bit of a break from the All-COVID-19/BLM Protests, All The Time news of late. Via Dan Diamond of Politico:
The Trump administration on Friday formally rolled back an Obama-era policy that protected LGBTQ patients from discrimination and required robust language translation services, unnerving health experts who worry vulnerable populations will face further risks during the Covid-19 pandemic.
The move — long sought by some of President Donald Trump's supporters in the conservative Christian community — is the latest effort by Trump to mobilize his religious base amid criticism over his handling of the coronavirus outbreak and the recent protests over the death of George Floyd in police custody.
On April 14th, Covered California reported that 58,000 residents had enrolled in ACA exchange coverage during their COVID-19 Special Enrollment Period, of which roughly 20,000 did so via standard SEPs (losing coverage, moving, getting married/divorced, etc), while an additional 38,000 took advantage of the COVID-specific SEP.
The bill in question wasn't terribly complicated; it essentially just placed a new fee on health insurance carriers to finance a new fund which would in turn be used to reduce healthcare coverage costs for low- and middle-income New Mexicans. Furthermore, since some of the fees would be imposed on managed Medicaid programs which are mostly federally funded, it would have leveraged tens of millions of dollars in federal funding as opposed to all of the fees coming from state residents. Had it gone into effect, HB 278 was expected to generate around $125 million in revenue for the state to use to reduce premiums and cost sharing for enrollees.
NEARLY 40,000 MARYLANDERS HAVE ENROLLED DURING CORONAVIRUS EMERGENCY SPECIAL ENROLLMENT PERIOD
Less than a week left for uninsured residents to get marketplace coverage
BALTIMORE, MD – The Maryland Health Benefit Exchange today is urging uninsured Marylanders to enroll in coverage before the June 15 deadline through the state’s health insurance marketplace, Maryland Health Connection, under the Coronavirus Emergency Special Enrollment Period. To date, nearly 40,000 residents have received health coverage during this special enrollment period that began in March with Gov. Larry Hogan’s announcement of a State of Emergency in Maryland.
Over a year ago, 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".
Health Carriers Propose Affordable Care Act (ACA) Premium Rates for 2021
BALTIMORE – Health carriers are seeking a range of changes to the premium rates they will charge consumers for plans sold in Maryland’s Individual Non-Medigap (INM) and Small Group (SG) markets in 2021.
The rates submitted for the INM market include the estimated impacts from the state-based reinsurance program (SBRP) enacted in 2019 via a 1332 State Innovation Waiver, approved by the federal Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.
“As CEO of the Washington Health Benefit Exchange, I have been saddened and horrified by the brutal death of George Floyd while in police custody. His death represents one of the most recent in a long history of violence against black people, including Philando Castile, Breonna Taylor, and Ahmaud Arbery, and far too many others. As communities across the state and the nation voice their justified anger and frustration, we stand with the Black community and all communities of color. This tragic event reminds our leadership and staff of the urgent need to continue to address structural racism as a way to narrow health disparities, especially in communities of color.
“We, too, are deeply concerned about the property damage taking place in our cities. It is harmful to so many people, including the communities who are working to make their voice heard. We choose to focus on the protestors’ message of racial justice over the damage being committed by a disorganized few, because property is replaceable and Black lives are not.
Now that I've brought all 50 states (+DC & the U.S. territories) up to date, I'm going to be posting a weekly ranking of the 40 U.S. counties (or county equivalents) with the highest per capita official COVID-19 cases and fatalities.
Again, I've separates the states into two separate spreadsheets:
Most of the data comes from either the GitHub data repositories of either Johns Hopkins University or the New York Times. Some of the data comes directly from state health department websites.
Here's the top 40 counties ranked by per capita COVID-19 cases as of Saturday, June 6th:
New York is the fifth state (well, fourth really) to announce their preliminary 2021 health insurance policy premium rate changes for the individual and small group markets (thanks to Michael Capaldo for the heads up):
NEW YORK STATE DEPARTMENT OF FINANCIAL SERVICES
2021 INDIVIDUAL AND SMALL GROUP REQUESTED RATE ACTIONS
6/5/2020
Health insurers in New York have submitted their requested rates for 2021, as set forth in the charts below. These are the rates proposed by health insurers, and have not been approved by DFS.
At long last, after many hours of data entry, here it is: The spread of COVID-19 across all 50 states over time, from March 20th through June 3rd, 2020, in official cases per capita.
I decided to only use every 3rd day (3/20, 3/23, 3/26, etc) in order to avoid as many one-day data reporting issues as possible (i.e., there were some cases where a state didn't update their numbers for 2 days in a row). I also gave up trying to tie every trend line to the state name; it simply gets too crowded near the bottom even with a small font size, so I've grouped some of them together where necessary.
I still hope to add the District of Columbia and U.S. territories (Guam, Puerto Rico, etc) but otherwise I should have everything fully up to date now, and should only have to plug in one day at a time going forward. I'll update this chart once a week if possible.
Since I've been neglecting other ACA/healthcare posts the past couple of weeks, I figured I should at least provide regular updates on why I've been mostly absent.
I've made major progress in updating and revising my breakout of COVID-19 cases and fatalities at not just the state level but the county level. Again, I've separates the states into two separate spreadsheets:
Denver -- Connect for Health Colorado® Chief Executive Officer Kevin Patterson released the following statement on the Health Care Coverage Easy Enrollment Program (HB 20-1236) after the bill passed through the General Assembly:
“I am excited that we can extend access to affordable health coverage for Coloradans with the simple act of checking a box. Easy Enrollment can provide financial stability and improve health outcomes for thousands of residents, many of whom are unfamiliar with the sign up process, or do not know they qualify for help. Through legislation such as Easy Enrollment, we work toward our goals of reducing the uninsured rate and educating Coloradans on the financial help we provide.”
30,000+ MARYLANDERS HAVE ENROLLED DURING THE CORONAVIRUS EMERGENCY SPECIAL ENROLLMENT PERIOD
Remaining uninsured residents have less than a month to get marketplace coverage
BALTIMORE, MD – The Maryland Health Benefit Exchange today reminded uninsured Marylanders that they have until June 15 to enroll in coverage through the state’s health insurance marketplace, Maryland Health Connection, under the Coronavirus Emergency Special Enrollment Period. As of May 15, nearly 31,000 residents across the state have taken advantage of this special enrollment period that began in March with Gov. Larry Hogan’s announcement of a State of Emergency in Maryland.
OLYMPIA, Wash. – Fifteen health insurers filed an average proposed rate decrease of 1.79% for the 2021 individual health insurance market. This includes two new insurers — UnitedHealthcare of Oregon and Community Health Network of Washington — that are joining Washington’s market.
With 15 insurers in next year’s individual market, all 39 counties will have at least two insurers selling plans inside the exchange, Washington Healthplanfinder. Ten insurers will sell plans outside of the exchange.
The proposed average rate decrease follows an average premium reduction of 3.25% for 2019 plans.
I've made major progress in updating and revising my breakout of COVID-19 cases and fatalities at not just the state level but the county level. Again, I've separates the states into two separate spreadsheets:
Most of the data comes from either the GitHub data repositories of either Johns Hopkins University or the New York Times. Some of the data comes directly from state health department websites.
I hope to fill in the back-data for every state within the next few days, bringing them all up to date. This should allow for plenty of interesting analysis of trends and counties to keep an eye on. It will also allow me to get back to posting more regular ACA policy updates/etc.
My county-level tracking project continues. I've now plugged in confirmed/official COVID-19 cases and fatalities across 36 states and hope to bring the remaining 14 states (plus the U.S. territories) up to date within the next few days.
Meanwhile, here's how cases have spread on a per capita basis across those 26 states from March 20th until May 29th. At the high end, I haven't gotten to two of the worst-hit states yet (New York & Rhode Island); at the lower end, there's a cluster of states which are difficult to separate out at this level as they're running so close together.
Just as important as the infection rate itself, of course, is the curve of the line. Louisiana and Michigan were hit hard early on, but seem to be flattening their curves, while states like Minnesota, Iowa, Mississippi and Alabama, which were hit later, are starting to curve upwards now, definitely the wrong direction.
