Charles Gaba's blog

Regular readers may be a bit confused here, as Oregon's insurance dept. had already approved 2017 rates back in early August, for a statewide average of around 23.8%.

However, as reported by Louise Norris:

But when four carriers (Atrio, BridgeSpan, Providence, and — off-exchange — Regence) agreed in August to cover a broader service area than they had originally intended for 2017, state regulators also allowed them to further increase their premiums due to the increased risk they would be shouldering. Final approved average rate increases for Oregon’s exchange carriers are as follows:

• Atrio Health Plans: 29 percent (up from the originally-approved 20.8 percent).

• BridgeSpan: 23 percent (up from the originally-approved 18.9 percent).

• Kaiser Permanente: 14.5 percent (range is from 10.9 to 22 percent).

I originally estimated the requested average rate hike for Wisconsin indy market carriers back in August. I came up with a weighted average of around 20%...but this was questionable due to my not being able to come up with the actual enrollment figures for 4 of the 15 carriers in the state (note: several of these have more than one entry for different types of plans):

A couple of days ago, the Wisconsin Insurance Dept. announced the approved rate increases. Unfortunately, the articles about it don't provide hard numbers for either the rate change or enrollment figures for each carrier either, but they did provide the overall weighted average increase, which is really what I'm trying to calculate anyway, so there you go:

This is a minor update, but with all the bad rate hike news this year, I'll take any good news I can get. A couple of weeks ago, the Arkansas Insurance Dept. approved rate hikes for the 4 carriers participating in the ACA exchange next year, including significant reductions for all of them:

Now it looks like the final rate increases have been chopped down still more:

In mid-August, all of the carriers that offer plans in the Arkansas exchange proposed new rate increases for 2017, all of which were lower than their initially filed rates. Rate increases were then reduced even further for QualChoice and QCA:

There was a time, just a few months ago, when it looked like Alaska, which had already suffered from massive rate hikes the past 2 years due to their unique healthcare situation, might have a complete catastrophe on their hands with a third year of massive individual market rate hikes.

Fortunately (and to their credit), the GOP state legislature worked with the Independent governor to pass a new law which created a state-based reinsurance program to stave off the ugly hikes. In July, it looked as though this would result in not-fantastic-but-not-awful 10% average increase:

A major health insurer is seeking an average rate increase of about 10 percent on individual health insurance policies in Alaska, far less than what it received the last two years. Thisfollows recent steps by the state to shore up Alaska's insurance marketplace.

Premera Blue Cross Blue Shield is expected to be the only company offering individual health policies in Alaska in 2017, with Moda Health planning to leave that market. Premera received average rate increases of nearly 40 percent for 2015 and 2016.

As I'm sure some readers have noticed, I haven't posted any updates since Friday, which is highly unusual for me, especially with open enrollment rapidly approaching. I'm afraid that due to an unfortunate coincidence of timing, I have an outside personal commitment which will be eating up a lot of my time for the next 4 weeks; as a result, expect posts to be lighter than usual.

Anyway, Hawaii's official 2017 approved rates came out the other day (thanks to commenter "M E" for the heads up):

Kaiser's 25.9% request was approved as is; HMSA's 43.3% was shot down originally; they later resubmitted it at 35%, which was then approved.

You may also notice that I've started making sure to include UNSUBSIDIZED in the headlines for all of these rate hikes. This is vitally important to remember, even if it's only relevant to around 50% of individual market enrollees.

Last year, the average full-price rate hikes approved by state regulators tended to be several percentage points lower overall than the increases requested by carriers. This year, there's been very little of that; in most case so far, the regulators have pretty much authorized the premium rate increases as requested by carriers...and in many cases have approved higher increases than requested. As a result, the overall national averages approved have been pretty close to the requests (around 24-25% nationally).

However, Nevada is an exception to this trend. Back in early June, the weighted average increases requested were just over 15% state-wide (this was confirmed by the NV DOI a month later). Yesterday, however, the DOI released the approved rate hikes, and I'm happy to report that they lopped about 1/3 off the average hikes:

I originally looked at the requested rate hikes in Kansas back in June; at the time, the weighted statewide average was roughly 35%.

While I haven't seen any press releases or news stories about it, when I looked at HealthCare.Gov's rate review database this morning, I saw that they have fianl (approved) rate increases listed for all of the Kansas listings. In most cases the requests were approved as is; in Coventry's off-exchange plans, however, are being increased more than requested, giving the following.

I should also note that according to Louise Norris, Medica is also entering the Kansas exchange for the first time, which means there's no "increase" to list since there's no current rates to compare them to.

I'm a little late on this, but the MNsure BOD held their monthly meeting on September 21st and provided some updated 2016 enrollment data.

To me the most noteworthy slide is the last one, which shows the effectuated exchange QHP enrollees for each month. While effectuated enrollment is likely down around 20% from the 12.7 million who had selected QHPs as of 2/01/16, Minnesota is showing a less dramatic drop-off (off around 16% from the 83,507 QHP selections as of 2/01).

My original estimate for the average unsubsidized rate hikes for Delaware's individual market back in June was 30.6%. Today the DE Dept. of Insurance issued their final approved rates, including the small group market:

Insurance Commissioner Karen Weldin Stewart today released Delaware’s Qualified Health Plan average rates for Plan Year 2017.

The Commissioner recommended approval of a 32.5 % average rate increase in the individual market for Highmark Blue Cross Blue Shield of Delaware. The approved average rate increase for the small group market for Highmark’s plans is 2.74%.

Aetna Life Insurance Company received an average of 22.8 % increase in the individual market and Aetna Health Insurance Company received an average increase of 23.6 %. In the small group market, Aetna Life received an average increase of 15.2 % and Aetna Health received an average increase of 19.7 %.

I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that Blue Cross Blue Shield of Oklahoma, which had originally asked for an already-ugly 51% average rate hike, had bumped that up to a jaw-dropping 76% ask. Well, earlier this week, they got it:

Obamacare premiums will raise a staggering 76 percent on average for Oklahoma residents, and the state's top insurance regulator says the state's insurance exchange set up by the law is on "life support."

Oklahoma's Insurance Department said on Tuesday that increases in individual marketplace plans will range from 58 percent to 96 percent.

"These jaw-dropping increases make it clear that Oklahoma's exchange is on life support," said Insurance Commissioner John Doak, in a statement. "Health insurers are losing massive amounts of money. If they don't raise rates they'll go out of business. This system has been doomed from the beginning."