The tweet includes this graphic, which seems pretty clear cut to me:
I noted yesterday that 3 states (Maryland, Idaho and California) have already opened up window shopping to prospective 2016 enrollees.
However, it was my understanding that no one was allowed to actually enroll (ie, "select or renew a Qualified Health Plan") until 2016 Open Enrollment officially starts on November 1st.
Not sure why this is being treated as such a revelation this morning, but Public Policy Polling just released new, extensive national polling results, and among the various topics they asked about was this bit regarding the Affordable Care Act:
Evidence continues to mount that the Affordable Care Act is just not a liability for Democrats anymore. Nationally we find that 42% of voters support it to 40% who are opposed. Those numbers are in line with what we've found in most swing states where we've polled on it over the course of this year. It's a far cry from when we used to consistently find voters opposed to it by a 10-15 point margin nationally and in key states. One big reason for the change is that Democrats (73%) are more unified in their support of it than Republicans (70%) are in their opposition to it. There isn't the sort of pro GOP intensity gap on the issue that there used to be.
For all of the improvements made to the federal exchange website, HealthCare.Gov, last year (ie, reducing the number of account creation screens from over 70 to just 16; optimized formatting for smartphones; working properly in general), there were still several major features missing. According to a new AP story, at least two of these have been addressed for the 2016 Open Enrollment period starting November 1st:
Consumers shopping on the government's health insurance website should find it easier this year to get basic questions answered about their doctors, medications and costs, according to an internal government document.
A slide presentation dated Sept. 29 says HealthCare.gov's window-shopping feature is getting a major upgrade.
...Previously, it could take considerable digging to find out plan details. Now consumers would be able to enter their doctors, hospitals and medications as they browse online. When they go to compare plans, they would see whether those doctors, hospitals and drugs are covered.
As it happens, at least two other state-based exchanges have done so as well:
COVERED CALIFORNIA: It's pretty obscure for the moment, but if you click the "Shop & Compare Tool" link at the lower left-hand corner of the CoveredCA website, you'll be given the option to shop around for 2016 plans (you can also choose 2015 plans in case you've had a qualifying life change and need coverage for the last 2 months of this year, or even 2014 plans if you still need that information for tax purposes or whatever):
Two more health insurers in North Carolina are asking to increase their already-proposed rate increases.
UnitedHealthcare, which had requested an average rate increase of 12.5 percent, now is asking regulators to allow an an average increase of 20.4 percent. The range is 2.5 percent to 50.3 percent.
Humana had requested 11.3 percent and is now asking for an average of 24.9 percent.
Last month I wrote a quick post about the Montana individual market; with only 3 players, all of whom had requested >10% increases, it was pretty easy to plug the numbers in: 22.2%, 29.3% and 34.0%.
Commissioner Monica Lindeen's office says the average rate increase for all plans next year will range between 22 percent and 34 percent. For the popular Silver plan, the increase will range from $80 to $88 a month for a 40-year-old person.
Lindeen said Thursday the rates affect about 41,000 people. They don't include people who receive federal tax credits or those who have insurance through their employers.
The "good" news here is that the affected number is only 41K instead of the 76K I had on record. It's possible that the middle carrier had their rates changed, but overall it looks like the commissioner just signed off on the original requests, for a roughly 26% average increase.
When I ran the numbers for Georgia's individual market in August, I didn't have a whole lot to work with. The requested rate changes were only publicly available for carriers representing around 222,000 enrollees, out of a state-wide individual market of (likely) around 750,000. The weighted average increase for the companies I had data for was around 18.3%; all I knew about the rest of them is that they had asked for hikes of under 10%. My best ballpark estimate was that Georgia residents were likely looking at roughly a 10-13% increase overall.
Today I ran across an article in the Rome News-Tribune which gives some of the final, approved rate hike numbers for 2016...but just bits and pieces, nothing to hang your hat on:
Many Georgians buying individual or family health insurance will see double-digit increases in their premiums for 2016.
For 2016, HMSA has proposed a 45.5 percent rate increase for their individual HMO plan, and nearly a 50 percent rate hike for their individual PPO plan (49.1 percent overall). The carrier justified their rate hikes based on claims costs, explaining that while virtually everyone in Hawaii was already insured, the uninsured pool – many of whom purchased new ACA-compliant plans – had significant medical needs.
Ouch. Yup, that's a pretty ugly requested increase, no way around it.
The following day, Kaiser proposed an 8.7 percent rate increase for their individual market policies.
If approved as is, this would have resulted in a 33.7% average rate increase, when weighted by market share between the two companies.
About a month ago, I crunched Nevada's individual and small group rate hike numbers and concluded that the overall weighted average hike in the Silver State next year (assuming everyone stays put and doesn't shop around) will be roughly 9.6% on the individual market and just 5.3% for small businesses.
Now, it's not the lower rate which caught my eye; the 8.7% figure only includes exchange-based carriers, of which there's only three this year, versus the dozen or so who operate throughout the state (there are 9 more insurance carriers who are only operating off of the exchange).
What I'm puzzled by is this part...which also includes some good news:
I realize this is mostly off-topic (although certainly gun violence overlaps with healthcare, both in terms of emergency room expenses as well as mental health services), but I couldn't resist posting about it.
