Just 3 days ago, I wrote about the changing 2016 rate increase request situation in Connecticut, where Arielle Levin Becker reported that 2 of the state insurance providers were lowering their requested rates ahead of the public regulatory hearings...even though the CT exchange, Access Health CT, is increasing their rates a bit to cover expenses. As a result, the overall weighted average increases being requested dropped a half a point, from 7.7% down to 7.2%, which is pretty darned good, all things considered.
The four companies selling individual health plans through Connecticut’s health insurance exchange have revised their proposals to raise rates in 2016, seeking lower increases than initially proposed.
Last week Oregon became the first state to actually approve their 2016 individual/family and small group market policy rate changes. Yesterday, Kentucky appears to have become the second:
Unfortunately, as you can see, while the average rate request for each company is listed, it isn't easy to find the actual enrollment/market share data for most of them, making it impossible to get a weighted average. In addition, there's an awful lot of "n/a / 0%" entries for some pretty big companies. Usually this means that they're new to the market, but I'm not sure that's the case here.
Anyway, assuming that I have the partial data above accurate, it looks like Kentucky's individual market changes will range from an 11% decrease (for WellCare Health Plans of Kentucky, Inc.) to a wince-inducing 25% increase (for the Kentucky Health CO-OP). I don't know how many are enrolled in WellCare right now, but the CO-OP has 53,000 customers, so expect some shuffling around...except, again, I have no idea what that's a 25.1% increase from.
Breaking: Birth Control Coverage Guaranteed for All — Despite Religious Exemptions
Now free coverage of all forms of birth control is guaranteed for all women, no matter where they work. The Obama administration on Friday issued a workaround to last year’s Hobby Lobby ruling, which gave companies religious exemptions on coverage for certain forms of birth control.
On top of this morning's excellent news from Gallup that the total number of uninsured U.S. adults dropped another 1.2 million people in the 2nd quarter of 2015 (0.5% of adults 18 & older = 0.5% out of appx. 245 million adults = around 1.2 million), the polling firm has released another data drop regarding approval/disapproval of the law, post-King v. Burwell:
On the surface, this isn't really that jaw-dropping; several other national polls have found similar trends, and the Kaiser Family Foundation's most recent survey actually has approval slightly outpacing disapproval. Still, it's always good to see confirmation from another respected source.
In addition, while the Kaiser survey included a fairly large "Don't know/Refused to answer" contingent, Gallup seems to be more forceful about getting leaners to commit: The latest survey only has 5% unlisted.
Furthermore, anyone who enrolled/enrolls between around February 23rd and March 15th (varies by state) will start coverage on April 1st...and then, on May 1st, the bulk of the #ACATaxTime Special Enrollment Period enrollees will be kicking into gear. Don't forget off-exchange enrollees, ongoing Medicaid expansion, etc...I wouldn't be at all surprised to see the national uninsured rate drop to below 12% by April.
The uninsured rate among U.S. adults declined to 11.9% for the first quarter of 2015 -- down one percentage point from the previous quarter and 5.2 points since the end of 2013, just before the Affordable Care Act went into effect. The uninsured rate is the lowest since Gallup and Healthways began tracking it in 2008.
Yesterday I noted that if the Republican Party really wants to damage the Affordable Care Act, they could do so quite easily...byhelping the Affordable Care Act:
Put another way: 11.7 million people selected QHPs during 2015 open enrollment, of which roughly 10.3 million are currently enrolled nationally. If every state had expanded Medicaid as of the beginning of this year, only around 9.5 million people would have selected QHPs and only around 8.4 million would still be enrolled in them today.
That's right: As Sprung put it last March, by refusing Medicaid expansion, red state governors and legislatures drove almost 2 million private plan enrollees to federal exchange.
UPDATE 7/13/15: OK, looks like they've posted a "teaser" of the interview this morning; it's set to air this evening at 6pm; as you can see, in the text version, at least, they did a good job of including several of the key points I brought up, especially the "shop around" factor:
This led to a bit of confusion about just who does and doesn't fall into the "Medicaid Gap"...that is, people who don't qualify for Medicaid, but also don't make enough money to qualify for federal tax credits to enroll in private policies via the ACA.
As I noted yesterday:
...in states which expanded Medicaid, households earning less than 138% of the Federal Poverty Level (FPL) are eligible for Medicaid; anyone from 138% - 400% are eligible for federal tax credits to enroll in private Qualified Health Plans (QHPs) via the ACA exchanges.
Remember that massive Excel HC.gov enrollment spreadsheet file released last week? The one which broke out 2015 QHP selections by county, age group, metal level, income range and so on? Well, for those who don't have Excel, they've set up a web-based version of each.
OK, this is rather embarrassing (from the Office of the Inspector General):
CMS's internal controls did not effectively ensure the accuracy of nearly $2.8 billion in aggregate financial assistance payments made to insurance companies under the Affordable Care Act during the first 4 months that these payments were made.
Last week another healthcare reporter and I (I think I do count as a "reporter" by now, yes?) were discussing the fact that some of the 10.3 million people currently enrolled in private policies via the ACA exchanges would be eligible for Medicaid instead, if their states would simply expand Medicaid via the ACA.
How is this? Well, in states which expanded Medicaid, households earning less than 138% of the Federal Poverty Level (FPL) are eligible for Medicaid; anyone from 138% - 400% are eligible for federal tax credits to enroll in private Qualified Health Plans (QHPs) via the ACA exchanges.
However, in states which didn't expand Medicaid, households earning 100% - 400% are eligible for those private QHP tax credits (anyone below 100% are flat-out screwed if they don't already qualify for "normal" Medicaid in their state).
