New Mexico Superintendent of Insurance Announces Premium Decreases for 2021
Santa Fe, NM –New Mexico Superintendent of Insurance Russell Toal announced today that health insurance premiums will decrease significantly for individuals and families purchasing their own coverage through beWellnm (New Mexico’s Health Insurance Exchange). Average plan prices dropped in the Bronze, Silver, and Gold plan categories across the state. Silver plans, the most common plan purchased on the individual Exchange, will decrease between 8.1 and 13.5 percent on average. Small businesses will experience a 6.7 percent average premium decrease on beWellnm.
The Office of Superintendent of Insurance (OSI) reviews health insurance filings annually to determine whether rates are reasonable and fair.
“After a rigorous review of health insurance filings, our office is pleased to report that premiums are going down in 2021,” said Superintendent Toal. “Not only are rates decreasing, but New Mexico will have more health plans competing in the marketplace than ever before”
Way back in July (a lifetime ago!), Michigan's Dept. of Financial Services posted the state's preliminary 2021 individual & small group rate filings. At the time, the average premium changes being asked for were around a 1.3% increase on the individual market and 1.4% on the small group market.
Last week, a few days ahead of the launch of the 2021 Open Enrollment Period, they posted the approved 2021 rates...and there's almost no changes at all. The only significant change was to Meridian's request, which was dropped from a 2.7% increase to a 5.6% decrease. Also, National Health Insurance dropped out of the Small Group market, but they don't appear to have anyone enrolled this year anyway:
BISMARCK, N.D. – Insurance Commissioner Jon Godfread today released the approved health insurance rates for both individual and small group plans for 2021, and encourages consumers to start early, stay informed and shop around.
The data below comes from the GitHub data repositories of Johns Hopkins University, except for Utah, which come from the GitHub data of the New York Times due to JHU not breaking the state out by county but by "region" for some reason.
Note that a few weeks ago I finally went through and separated out swing districts. I'm defining these as any county which where the difference between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton was less than 6 percentage points either way in 2016. There's a total of 198 Swing Counties using this criteria (out of over 3,200 total), containing around 38.5 million Americans out of over 330 million nationally, or roughly 11.6% of the U.S. population.
With these updates in mind, here's the top 100 counties ranked by per capita COVID-19 cases as of Saturday, October 24th (click image for high-res version). Blue = Hillary Clinton won by more than 6 points; Orange = Donald Trump won by more than 6 points; Yellow = Swing District
Back in early August, the Pennsylvania Insurance Dept. issued the preliminary rate filings for PA's individual and small group market carriers. At the time, the weighted average rate change being requested on the individual market came to a 2.6% reduction in unsubsidized premiums, while the average small group plan was set to increase by 2.3%.
Last week, the PA DOI issued their final decisions for the long list of carriers on each market, and the changes were...minimal, really. In fact, there was no change at all made to most requested rate filings--only two of the 17 indy market carriers saw a change (reductions for each), and only four of the 21 small group carriers did...and even then, the changes aren't terribly dramatic, just a few percentage points in most cases.
A month later, the RI DOI issued their approved 2021 rate decisions, and made some small tweaks to each. In fact, it looks like there was at least one revision in between, as the new press release lists slightly different numbers for the "preliminary" requests.
In any event, Rhode Island indy & sm. group enrollees will be looking at roughly 4.2% increases on the individual market and 2.6% increases for small group plans:
Way back in June, the Washington Insurance Dept. posted the state's preliminary 2021 preliminary individual & small group market premium rate filings. At the time, the weighted average across all carriers was a 1.8% drop in individual market premiums and a 3.4% increase in small group rates. They also announced the addition of two new carriers to the individual market: Community Health Network and UnitedHealthcare of Oregon. It's important to note that both of these new carriers will only be providing WA's new (quasi) Public Option plans.
Last month, however, the WA DOI announced the approved 2021 rates...for the individual market only, and even then it's missing two carriers which are still under review (Asuris and Health Alliance NW). The missing carriers only have 1,200 enrollees between them, however, so any changes to their requested rates won't move the needle noticeably:
Last night, during the final Presidential debate of 2020, Joe Biden noted:
Biden: Take a look at what New York has done in terms of turning the curve down, in terms of the number of people dying. And I don’t look at this in terms of the way he does, blue states and red states. They’re all the United States. And look at the states that are having such a spike in the coronavirus. They’re the red states, they’re the states in the Midwest, they’re the states in the upper Midwest. That’s where the spike is occurring significantly. But they’re all Americans. They’re all Americans. And what we have to do is say, wear these masks, number one. Make sure we get the help that the businesses need. That money’s already been passed to do that. It’s been out there since the beginning of the summer, and nothing’s happened.
Of course Biden's entire point was that ALL the states are American states, and thus we shouldn't treat them differently depending on their political lean.
Back in late August, the Florida Office of Insurance Regulation posted preliminary 2021 individual & small group market rate filings. At the time, the weighted average increases were around 1.8% on the individual market and 3.3% for small group plans. Unfortunately, the actual enrollment data for each carrier is protected as a trade secret in Florida, but the FLOIR did post those weighted statewide averages.
Last month (I'm a bit behind) they posted the approved, final rate filings. The average individual market increases actually went up a bit, which is unusual (usually they're whittled down a few points), while the small group market average is exactly the same (oddly, they had it as 3.3% in August but say that the preliminary average was 3.4% now):
I bravely watched it so you don't have to. Here's the full segment about the ACA and the Trump/GOP lawsuit to strike it down, set to be heard by the Supreme Court on November 10th:
(starting around 15 minutes in):
STAHL: "You promised that there was gonna be a new health package.
TRUMP: "Yeah."
STAHL: "You said it was gonna be great, you said it'll be ready, it'll be here in two weeks, it was gonna be like nothing you've ever seen before...and of course we haven't seen it...so why didn't you develop a health plan?"
TRUMP:"It is developed. It is fully developed, it's going to be announced very soon, when we see what happens with Obamacare, which is not good. And...when we see what happens with Obamacare.
