The most noteworthy developments below are that in addition to Friday, Oscar and Bright Health Plans all leaving the Colorado market (as documented/reported on several times earlier this year), Aetna and Humana both appear to be dropping out of the states small group market.
In any event, the weighted average increase being requested is 9.2% on the individual market and 8.4% for the small group market.
Last month I noted that Michigan legislative Democrats were planning on passing a package of bills designed to repeal a bunch of restrictions on abortion & other reproductive healthcare:
Dems to end 24-hour abortion waiting period, ban on Medicaid funding of procedure
LANSING — Michigan Democrats said Wednesday they will repeal laws that require a 24-hour waiting period to have an abortion performed, impose what they say are costly and unnecessary regulatory burdens on abortion clinics, prohibit abortions funded by Medicaid, and ban private health insurers from automatically covering abortions under standard policies.
The list includes 9 major items (some of which actually include a lot more than one provision within them). It really should include ten, since I forgot about implementing a Basic Health Plan program like New York and Minnesota have (and as Oregon is ramping up to do soon as well), but it's still a pretty full plate.
October 16th: CMS approved a state plan amendment for Montana to extend postpartum coverage for a full year for individuals enrolled in Medicaid. The opportunity to extend postpartum coverage was made possible under the American Rescue Plan and made permanent in the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2023. Montana’s approval marks 38 states, D.C., and the U.S. Virgin Islands that have extended postpartum Medicaid coverage for an entire year. This approval supports the CMS Maternity Care Action Plan and Biden-Harris Maternal Health Blueprint.
via KFF, the 12 states which haven't expanded postpartum Medicaid coverage to a full year include:
The good news is that the federal Rate Review database has now posted the preliminary avg. 2024 rate filings for the individual and small group markets for every state. This makes it very easy to plug in the average requested rate changes in 2024 for every carrier participating in both markets.
The bad news is that most of the underlying filing forms are heavily redacted, meaning I can't use the RR database to acquire the other critical data I need in order to run a proper weighted average: The number of people actually enrolled in the policies for each carrier.
This means that in cases where this data isn't available elsewhere (either the state's insurance department website, the SERFF database or otherwise), I'm limited to running an unweighted average. This can make a huge difference...if one carrier is requesting a 10% increase and the other is keeping prices flat, that's a 5.0% unweighted average rate hike...but if the first carrier has 99,000 enrollees and the second only has 1,000, that means the weighted average is actually 9.9%.
ST. PAUL, Minn.—Minnesotans who need health insurance for 2024 can now preview plans through MNsure, Minnesota’s official health insurance marketplace. MNsure’s annual open enrollment period for health insurance begins November 1, and Minnesotans can get a jump start by going to MNsure.org to shop, compare options, and get a free and anonymous cost estimate.
“MNsure is the only place Minnesotans can compare health plans from multiple insurance companies, side-by-side,” said MNsure CEO Libby Caulum. “When you shop for health insurance through MNsure, you can be confident you’re getting the right plan, at the right price, for you and your family.”
With just three key pieces of information — where you live, who is in your household, and total household income — you can get an immediate estimate of how much money you could save by enrolling in a private health plan for 2024 through MNsure. And you can find out if any household members may be eligible for no- or low-cost coverage through Medical Assistance or MinnesotaCare.
Today, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) released the 2024 Star Ratings for Medicare Advantage (Medicare Part C) and Medicare Part D to help people with Medicare compare health and prescription drug plans ahead of Medicare Open Enrollment, which kicks off on October 15.
On October 12, 2023, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) released the 2024 premiums, deductibles, and coinsurance amounts for the Medicare Part A and Part B programs, and the 2024 Medicare Part D income-related monthly adjustment amounts.
The Medicare Savings Programs (MSPs) help more than 10 million people with coverage of Medicare premiums and, in most cases, other cost sharing. In their continued efforts to improve access to health care and lower costs for millions of Americans, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), through CMS, recently finalized a rule to streamline enrollment in MSPs, making coverage more affordable for an estimated 860,000 people. In addition, the Part D low‑income subsidy (LIS) helps pay for the Part D premium and lowers the cost of prescription drugs. Further, the Inflation Reduction Act recently expanded the number of people eligible for full LIS.
OmniSalud program will provide $0 premium health plans to 11,000 qualified individuals.
DENVER - The Colorado Division of Insurance (DOI), part of the Department of Regulatory Agencies (DORA), is pleased to announce that for 2024, it will increase the availability of financial assistance for health insurance in the OmniSalud program to 11,000 individuals. This a 10 percent increase from 10,000 individuals in 2023.
OmniSalud allows Coloradans without documentation (including DACA recipients) and who are ineligible for federal subsidies for health insurance, to get health insurance that meets the requirements of the Affordable Care Act (ACA). Those who qualify can receive financial help, called SilverEnhanced Savings, to make that insurance more affordable. The OmniSalud program is offered through Colorado Connect, Connect for Health Colorado’s public benefit corporation and online enrollment platform.
Until October 2013, I wasn't a healthcare wonk. I wasn't an expert on the ACA specifically or health insurance in general. I didn't know my ass from a hole in the ground when it came to risk pools, cost sharing, deductibles, out of pocket caps, guaranteed issue, community rating or any of the other industry buzz words.
Hell, I didn't even know that Medicaid is the same program as California's Medi-Cal or Wisconsin's BadgerCare Plus (that's just how those states brand the program).
What I did know was that the Patient Protection & Affordable Care Act, which had been signed into law 3 1/2 years earlier, was a Big Fucking Deal®, as President Biden had put it...and I knew that the main provisions of the ACA were about to go into effect.
Ten days earlier, on the same day that the federal and state ACA exchanges had opened for business (with some of them, including the main one at HealthCare.Gov experiencing catastrophic technical failures), At the same time, Texas Senator Ted Cruz had spearheaded a federal government shutdown (sound familiar?) in protest of the new law.
Those first few weeks were pretty chaotic for the ACA, to put it mildly.
