Coalition cheers Health Insurance Rate Review bill passage
The House followed the Senate’s unanimous approval of SB 865, sponsored by Sen. David Sater, with a 140-6 vote, moving the “Health Insurance Rate Review” bill to the Governor’s desk on Tuesday.
In addition to rate review, the bill will modify provisions regarding licenses issued by the Board of Pharmacy and covered prescription benefits, delineates procedures for PBMs with regards to MAC lists, and requires health carriers to offer medication synchronization services.
The advancement was cheered by Missouri Health Care for All (MHCFA), who believe the bill will bring more transparency to insurance premiums.
As numerous sources have already indicated, after 2 years of (relatively) low average premium rate increases on the individual market (around 5.6% in 2015 and 8.0% in 2016...compared with the 10-12% average rate hikes over the previous decade), it looks like 2017 will finally see the higher rate hikes that ACA critics have been screaming about every year.
So far, Virginia and Oregon have reported requested rate increases of 17.9% and 27.5% respectively, while California may be looking at 8.0% increases (which is high for them).
Chad Terhune reported today that Covered California, the largest state-run ACA exchange in the country, released their 2016-2017 fiscal year projected budget, which includes a mountain of useful enrollment data...some of which is positive, some negative and some of which depends on your POV:
California’s health insurance exchange estimates that its Obamacare premiums may rise 8 percent on average next year, which would end two consecutive years of more modest 4 percent increases.
The projected rate increase in California, included in the exchange’s proposed annual budget, comes amid growing nationwide concern about insurers seeking double-digit premium hikes in the health law’s insurance marketplaces.
...Insurers in California have submitted initial rates for 2017, but the final figures won’t be known until July after state officials conduct private negotiations.
Land of Lincoln Mutual Health Insurance Co. plans to look for outside investors to boost its financial resources after federal regulators indicated they would loosen funding restrictions on consumer operated and oriented plans.
Long-time readers know that ever since I started this project in 2013, I gradually added and enhanced the healthcare coverage data that I was tracking. First it was exchange-based QHPs only; then I added (or separated out) Medicaid expansion, SHOP (small business) exchange enrollment, off-exchange individual policies and so on. The off-exchange numbers were always significant but spotty because most insurance carriers are very cagey about breaking out their membership in too much detail if they don't have to, and many state insurance departments don't bother to track (or at least publicly report) those numbers.
SHOP enrollment, on the other hand, should be very cut and dry. Like exchange-based individual QHP enrollments, there's no reason why these shouldn't be included in every regular exchange enrollment report, and several of the state-based exchanges do just that...although in some cases, even that's a bit fuzzy. For instance:
Just yesterday, the Urban Institute released a detailed analysis of Bernie Sanders's "Medicare for All" plan, which would actually be far more comprehensive than Medicare is, not just in terms of how many Americans it would cover (everyone!) and what percentage of costs it would cover (everything!) but also in terms of what ailments/services it would cover (all of them!).
Their conclusion was that such a policy would cost over twice as much as Senator Sanders claims (around $32 trillion over the next decade on top of what the federal & state governments currently spend, versus the $13.8 trillion that Sanders estimates). Their conclusion was even more expensive than the $24 trillion estimate from a prior analysis by Kenneth Thorpe (the guy who put together Vermont's failed single payer proposal a decade ago).
When UnitedHealthcare announced last month that they were making good on their threat last fall to pull out of the individual market in over two dozen states next year, it caused shockwaves across the health insurance industry. It is an important development, as around 800,000 people will be impacted.
When Humana announced last week that they plan on pulling out of the individual market in at least 5 states next year, it was interesting and a bit of a bummer, but not nearly as earthshattering, because only about 25,000 people will have to shop around and find a new carrier.
Today, it is my duty to announce that Celtic insurance has also decided to pull out of the entire individual insurance market (both on and off-exchange) across at least 6 states, including:
At a campaign stop Monday in Northern Virginia, Hillary Clinton reiterated her support for a government-run health plan in the insurance market, possibly by letting let Americans buy into Medicare, to stem the rise of health-care costs.
After the dust settled on the 2014 Open Enrollment Period, I was ready to call it quits; my business had suffered greatly and I even came down with a nasty case of shingles due to working up to 16 hours a day tracking the crazy final weeks. However, many people asked me to keep things going, and thanks to the generosity of many people both here and over at Daily Kos, I was able to commit to covering the 2nd year of ACA open enrollment as well.
Today, with the 2016 enrollment period several months behind us, I just realized that I completely forgot to mention that yes, I've once again made arrangements to keep at it for a fourth year: I'll continue to track ACA enrollments as well as related ACA/healthcare data developments (Medicaid, BHPs, premium rate hikes, etc etc) for another full year, through at least April 2017.
However, those arrangements only cover a portion of the time and effort it takes to maintain everything here at ACASignups.net...the Spreadsheet, the Graph, and especially the blog.
Some regular visitors have been very generous in the past, so I'm not directing this at them...but for those who haven't yet done so, and who appreciate the data, analysis and discussion here at ACA Signups, I'd greatly appreciate any donation you might be able to spare to help keep it operating.
On the one hand, the open enrollment period itself may seem to be getting almost...boring. Most of the technical issues have been worked out and people are getting more and more used to the process. Dramatic Supreme Court decisions like King vs. Burwell and Hobby Lobby are now behind us.
I'm a long-time single payer advocate (although I'm willing to accept something short of it). I've long admired Bernie Sanders as a Senator. And while I was generally leaning towards supporting Hillary in the primary, I was very open to being persuaded to Feeling the Bern. One of the big things which I was hoping would be the tipping point was Sanders's much-anticipated official Single Payer plan (as opposed to one of the earlier ones he had previously proposed in past years). This was supposed to be the culmination of 30+ years of single payer advocacy from a major presidential candidate who was making that proposal one of the cornerstones of his entire campaign. Expectations were high here, and if I had been impressed by the plan itself (even as a rough "white paper" outline), I was ready to jump on board.
