Back in April, I started an ambitious project which set out to track every legislative or regulatory measure taken by every state to counter, cancel out or mitigate sabotage of the Affordable Care Act by the Trump Administration and Congressional Republicans. It resulted in this color-coded spreadsheet, which lists dozens of bills, proposals, amendments and so on at various stages of completion.
The bad news is that project has proven to be too large for me to keep up with--there's simply too many bills, too many stages and too much other stuff going on for me to keep track of it all.
Last year, Virginia residents experienced massive amounts of heartburn and ulcers as two major insurance carriers, Optima (Sentara Health) and Anthem (HealthKeepers) played musical chairs with both their 2018 rate filings and which areas of the state they offered plans on.
In May 2017, things didn't look too bad: Both Anthem and Optima were available in fairly large chunks of the state, and while Anthem wanted to raise rates an ugly 38% on average, Optima was only looking to increase rates by around 10-11%.
DOI Completes Review of Individual and Small-Group Health Insurance Rate Filings
The Kentucky Department of Insurance (DOI) announced today that it has completed its review of the individual and small-group insurance rates filed in the Kentucky market. The rates will be used to calculate insurance premiums in the 2019 benefit year.
Kentuckians in the individual market will once again experience changes in premiums and plan offerings. The rates that will be used reflect an average rate increase of 4.3 percent for Anthem Health Plans of Kentucky (Anthem) and 19.4 percent for CareSource. Since the actual premium charged will vary by individual and the plan level selected, some individuals may see a decrease in rates.
The judge overseeing the high-profile case over the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act, which could potentially land at the Supreme Court, is slated to attend a Federalist Society event featuring Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas -- and several members of the federal circuit court of appeals that would review the case before it landed at the high court. A key ethic professor suggests the Texas' judge's appearance at the event does not cross any lines.
Judge Reed O'Connor is also slated to monitor a panel entitled “Trump, Sessions and the States,” during the Texas Chapter meeting on Sept. 8, just days after the Sept. 5 arguments in the federal Texas court are scheduled.
Inside Health Policy asked ethics experts whether O'Connor's appearance pushed the envelope on judicial ethics, and those that responded generally suggested his appearance at the event is not an issue.
A Lancaster County District judge has dismissed a challenge to the Medicaid expansion petition initiative, allowing the initiative to be placed on the November ballot.
The lawsuit was brought by former state Sen. Mark Christensen and Sen. Lydia Brasch. They alleged the initiative was an unconstitutional delegation of legislative authority, contained more than one subject, which the state Constitution prohibits, and that it failed to identify Nebraska Appleseed as a sworn sponsor.
Last week, Secretary of State John Gale confirmed that enough signatures were gathered by petition circulators to put the question of whether to expand Medicaid to about 90,000 uninsured adult Nebraskans on the Nov. 6 ballot.
...The campaign has said Medicaid expansion will create and sustain 10,000 new jobs, reduce medical bankruptcies, bring $1.1 billion of Nebraskans’ tax dollars back from Washington, D.C., and produce savings by reducing uncompensated care for those who lack health coverage.
This just in from the Florida Office of Insurance Regulation...
OIR Announces 2019 PPACA Individual Market Health Insurance Plan Rates
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. – The Florida Office of Insurance Regulation (OIR) announced today that premiums for Florida individual major medical plans in compliance with the federal Patient Protection & Affordable Care Act (PPACA) will increase an average of 5.2 percent beginning January 1, 2019. Per federal guidelines, a total of nine health insurance companies submitted rate filings for OIR’s review in June with final rate determinations due by August 22, 2018.
Following OIR’s rate filing review, the average approved rate changes on the Exchange range from a low of -1.5 percent to a high of 9.8 percent. This information can be located in the Individual PPACA Market Monthly Premiums for Plan Year 2019 document available here.
With the deadline for submitting 2019 rate filings having passed a week or so ago, the approved rates from the various state insurance regulators have been popping up left and right. Today I took a look at the Arkansas Insurance Dept. website and sure enough, they've posted the approved filings for all 4 carriers on the individual market (as well as the small group market).
On the one hand, the statewide average rate increase hasn't changed much from the preliminary average; it dropped 0.4 points from 4.5% to 4.1%...and some of that change is simply because I had misestimated the actual enrollment/market share for a couple of the carriers.
On the other hand, in Arkansas, at least, it appears that the carriers don't think the repeal of the individual mandate and/or the Trump Administration's expansion of short-term and association health plans will have nearly as big of an adverse selection impact as other estimates/projections have...including my own.
Ensure that young adults can continue to remain on their parents’ health insurance plans until age 26
Prohibit insurers from using applicants’ gender to set premiums
Prohibit insurers from rejecting an application based on an applicant’s medical history, or imposing coverage exclusions based on pre-existing conditions.
Today, however, there were major developments regarding #ShortAssPlan restrictions (and a few other important patient protection bills) in three states: Two positive, one negative.
Many of the findings were things which I had been either predicting or documenting all year:
Enrollment through Healthcare.gov Was 5 Percent Lower in 2018 than 2017
Stakeholders Reported That Plan Affordability Likely Played a Major Role in Enrollment
HHS Reduced Consumer Outreach for 2018 and Used Problematic Data to Allocate Navigator Funding
HHS Did Not Set Numeric Enrollment Targets for 2018, and Instead Focused on Enhancing Certain Aspects of Consumers’ Experiences
We identified a list of factors that may have affected 2018 healthcare.gov enrollment based on a review of Department of Health and Human Services information, interviews with health policy experts, and review of recent publications by these experts related to 2018 exchange enrollment.
