New Mexico has a unique exchange; the state runs the small business portion, and while the individual exchange is also technically state-run, Healthcare.gov is used to enroll people in individual insurance (ie, a federally-supported state-based marketplace). But the exchange is planning to establish its own enrollment platform that will be in use by the fall of 2020.
Normally I'd just use a snippet of the entry, but Norris manages to cover all the relevant angles in just a few paragraphs; I think she'll be OK with me cribbing more of it:
Initially, the state had planned to establish a state-run website for individual enrollments fairly soon after the exchanges went live in the fall of 2013, and that was still in the works until early spring 2015. But in April 2015, the exchange board voted to continue to use Healthcare.gov, as that was viewed as the less-costly alternative.
Tomorrow, HHS Secretary Azar will join Governor Haslam in Nashville, Tennessee to deliver remarks at an event hosted by the Nashville Health Care Council.
Secretary Azar will share news regarding the Affordable Care Act marketplace and reflect on lessons for healthcare reform.
In advance of tomorrow, here are a few excerpts of Secretary Azar’s remarks (as prepared for delivery):
“The previous administration’s major healthcare achievement, the Affordable Care Act, was an attempt to use more government regulation and intervention to improve American healthcare.
“As we all know, the results were disastrous, with skyrocketing costs and disappearing choices.
“But today, I am here to share with you some good news.
Later Wednesday, [Democratic Governor Gina] Raimondo held her own news conference to sign an executive order that, among other steps, directs the state to seek to codify in state law protections for people with preexisting conditions, dependents up to age 26, prescription drug benefits and maternity coverage in case federal action is taken to weaken the Affordable Care Act.
Rhode Island has one of the highest insured rates in the country, and Raimondo said she was defending "Rhode Islanders' access to high-quality, affordable health coverage."
I'm not quite sure what an executive order has to do with codifying ACA protections into law, since that's really up to the state legislature to do, but I guess it at least kicks their butts into gear?
This is also refreshing to hear from a Republican challenger:
A few minutes ago I posted about North Dakota'sapproved 2019 rate hikes, which are coming in at a mere 3.2% on average (but which would likely be dropping nearly 20 points without both last and this year's #ACASabotage factors).
As I noted last month when I first analyzed the requested 2019 rates for North Dakota insurers, ND was somewhat unique last year in that it was one of only two states (the other was Vermont) which didn't tack on any extra premium increases for 2018 to account for the lost Cost Sharing Reduction reimbursement revenue after Donald Trump cut off those payments last October.
This led to one of North Dakota's three carriers, Medica, dropping off the ACA exchange altogether, though they still ended up enrolling a few hundred people directly via the off-exchange market.
A few years back I posted an entry which breaks out the income eligibility thresholds for Medicaid and CHIP in every state. I've reposted an updated version below, which also takes into account Basic Health Plan (BHP) eligibility in Minnesota and New York. This comes directly from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid. Note the footnotes at the bottom. The pink cells on the right indicate that the state has not yet expanded Medicaid under the ACA (Maine and Virginia have passed but note implemented doing so, while Medicaid expansion is on the ballot in Idaho, Nebraska and Utah this November).
As a reminder, here's the 2018 Federal Poverty Level income chart for every state except Alaska and Hawaii (Alaska is 25% higher, Hawaii is 15% higher):
The state is exploring whether a Montana-run reinsurance program would help lower the premiums people pay when buying their health insurance on the federal marketplace, in some cases by 10-20 percent.
Yes. Yes, it would.
...Montana Gov. Steve Bullock and Department of Administration Director John Lewis are creating a 13-person working group to explore how a state-run reinsurance program might work in Montana. The group will use information from a recent study commissioned by the Montana Healthcare Foundation looking at what reinsurance could mean for the state.
The study shows reinsurance could lower premiums that have risen by double digits in recent years. Those rates could drop anywhere from 9.6 percent to nearly 30 percent on extreme ends of the spectrum, according to the study.
As I noted back in July, in addition to the Trump Administration's Centers for Medicare & Medicaid (CMS) chopping down the marketing budget for HealthCare.Gov by 90% last year, they also slashed the navigator/personal outreach budget by over 40% as well, from $63 million down to $36 million...and this year have cut it by another $26 million, to just $10 million across all 34 states which rely on HealthCare.Gov to host their ACA exchange open enrollment functionality (there are 5 more states which are hosted by HC.gov, but which I believe operate their own exchange and navigator budget: Oregon, New Mexico, Nevada, Kentucky and Arkansas). Combined, that makes an 84% reduction in navigator funding over a 2 year period.
BREAKING: Governor @JerryBrownGov today signed several #Care4AllCA bills that protects patients and places greater accountability on health insurers now on Gov's desk:#SB910 & #SB1375 to ban/limit "junk" insurance;#AB2499 on MLR; and#AB2472 on a public option study.
Open enrollment for 2019 coverage will begin October 15, 2018 in California, and continue until January 15, 2019
Nationwide, open enrollment for 2019 coverage is scheduled to run from November 1, 2018 to December 15, 2018 — the same schedule that was followed in late 2017 for 2018 coverage. But Covered California was one of only three state-run exchanges that opted in 2017 to keep open enrollment at three months in duration for 2018 coverage (the others were New York and DC).
And the state enacted legislation (A.B.156) in late 2017 that codifies a three-month open enrollment period going forward — California will not be switching to the November 1 – December 15 open enrollment window that other states will be using.
