Arkansas is a problematic state for many reasons, but I have to give their insurance dept. website high praise for posting their annual rate filings in a clear, simple & comprehensive fashion (which is to say, not only do they post the avg. premium changes for each carrier, they also post the number of covered lives for each, which is often difficult for me to dig up). Better yet, they also include direct links to the filing summaries and include the SERFF tracking number for each in case I need to look up more detailed info.
Anyway, there's nothing terribly noteworthy in the 2024 filings, in which AR carriers are seeking an average 5.0% rate hike on the individual market and 5.5% for small group plans. USAble HMO is launching a new line of HMO insurance products in the state next year (called "Octave" I believe) but otherwise it looks pretty calm.
New Report Projects Nearly 19 Million Seniors Will Save $400 Per Year on Out-of-Pocket Prescription Drug Costs
Today, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), announced actions to protect consumers from junk health plans, surprise medical bills, and excess costs that lead to medical debt. These actions build on the Biden-Harris Administration’s effort to eliminate hidden fees in every sector of the economy and lower health care costs for American seniors and families.
Coinciding with the actions taken today, HHS also released a new report projecting that nearly 19 million seniors will save approximately $400 per year on prescription drug costs when the $2,000 out-of-pocket prescription drug spending cap from the Inflation Reduction Act – President Biden’s historic lower cost prescription drug law – goes into effect in 2025.
Surprise bills happen when an out-of-network provider is unexpectedly involved in a patient’s care. Patients go to a hospital that accepts their insurance, for example, but get treated there by an emergency room physician who doesn’t. Such doctors often bill those patients for large fees, far higher than what health plans typically pay.
Short-Term, Limited-Duration Insurance; Independent, Noncoordinated Excepted Benefits Coverage; Level-Funded Plan Arrangements; and Tax Treatment of Certain Accident and Health Insurance (CMS-9904-P)
MARYLAND WINS FEDERAL APPROVAL FOR “REINSURANCE” FOR ANOTHER FIVE YEARS
Program has helped drive down rates for Marylanders who buy their own health coverage to among the most affordable in the nation
BALTIMORE (July 5, 2023) – The Reinsurance Program that helped drive down costs for consumers who purchase their own health insurance in Maryland to among the lowest rates in the nation has been renewed for the next five years.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of the Treasury informed Maryland health and insurance officials that they have approved the state’s application for the period from Dec. 31, 2023, when the current authorization expires, until Dec. 31, 2028.
They typically release state-level breakout estimates of the total U.S. individual market once or twice a year. They haven't done so in 2023 as of yet, but today they did release this overview analysis:
District Court Judge Terry Doughty, who was appointed by President Donald Trump, issued a preliminary injunction on Tuesday that bars several federal departments and agencies from various interactions with social media companies.
On Wednesday, the Justice Department filed a notice that it will appeal the injunction with the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans. The government also expects to ask the court to stay the district judge's decision, meaning it would not go into effect while the appeal is heard.
The bottom line is that this funding was intended to go towards reducing health insurance premiums for ACA exchange enrollees via Covered California as supplemental subsidies to be added on top of federal ACA tax credits...but the passage of the American Rescue Plan and the subsequent Inflation Reduction Act kind of made that moot, since the federal subsidies were made more generous than what the state subsidies would have been anyway.
As a result, Gov. Newsom decided that the extra revenue should go into the general state fund, while Democrats on the state legislature wanted to redirect it to eliminate deductibles and other types of cost sharing for ACA enrollees instead. This led to an impasse for the past several months:
As I wrote about back in March and updated in May, New York's implementation of the ACA's Basic Health Plan provision (Section 1331 of the law) is called the Essential Plan. It currently serves over 1.1 million New Yorkers, or over 5x as many residents as ACA exchange plans do.
Under the ACA, most states have expanded Medicaid to people with income up to 138 percent of the poverty level. But people with incomes very close to the Medicaid eligibility cutoff frequently experience changes in income that result in switching from Medicaid to ACA’s qualified health plans (QHPs) and back. This “churning” creates fluctuating healthcare costs and premiums, and increased administrative work for the insureds, the QHP carriers and Medicaid programs.
The out-of-pocket differences between Medicaid and QHPs are significant, even for people with incomes just above the Medicaid eligibility threshold who qualify for cost-sharing subsidies.
