For most of the states I'm analyzing, I have hard enrollment numbers for the insurance carriers requesting rate hikes over 10%; it's the remaining companies (the ones seeking hikes of less than 10%) which are generally the big unknowns.
In Mississippi's case, this is flipped around: There appear to only be 4 companies offering individual policies in the entire state, and while I'm missing the enrollment number for the biggest one (BCBSMS), I can calculate a pretty close estimate due to a unique factor: Neither of the two asking for >10% hikes are offering exchange-based policies:
Assuming subsidies remain in place, none of the individual plans available in Mississippi’s exchange have requested double digit rate increases for 2016. The only exchange plan requesting a rate increase of ten percent or more is a small group plan from United HealthCare. Rate increases of at least ten percent are published on Healthcare.gov’s rate review tool, and the only individual market Mississippi plans on the list are off-exchange.
As with many other states, I'm working with limited enrollment and rate change data here, so plenty of caveats abound. However, Alabama's 2014 individual market was only around 206,000 people, and the ACA-compliant market should be roughly the same this year. I can account for 176,000 of that, so the remaining 30K or so are unknown other than being split among a half-dozen companies which requested rate changes of below 10% increases.
Assuming around 7% on average for the balance, Alabama residents are likely looking at roughly a 24.4% rate hike...assuming they stick with their current plans.
In other words: Shop around, shop around, shop around!
There's an old saying: Figures lie and liars figure. Statistics and percentages are a funny thing; as politicians of every stripe know, you can often twist them to mean whatever you like, especially when you don't provide proper (or sometimes any) context whatsoever. Case in point: Yesterday's embarrassingly dishonest "chart" presented by Representative Jason Chaffetz at the Planned Parenthood witchhunt committee hearing.
For a less inflamatory example of this, consider the headline of this entry:
Delaware: *Approved* 2016 rate hikes reduced by 11.4%!!
At first glance, of course, it looks like I'm saying that after going through the regulatory approval process, the individual health insurance premium rates in Delaware are being reduced by 11.4% next year! Hooray!
As part of a renewed attack on the Affordable Care Act, House Republicans grilled Access Health CEO James Wadleigh and the heads of other state health insurance marketplaces Tuesday, saying they had wasted billions of taxpayer dollars on an effort that has raised health insurance deductibles and premiums.
“In many states, physicians aren’t taking any new Medicaid patients. Focusing on uninsured rates is not the only parameter,” Rep. Greg Walden, R-Ore., said.
Last week I made a valiant effort to convert my 2016 individual market percentage rate ncrease project into actual dollar figures--that is, I tried to figure out how much premiums are likely to increase, on average, in each state, in actual dollars. After all, saying that a policy premium "went up 50%" while another "only" went up 5% for the same person doesn't tell you much if the first one started out at $200/month and the second one was already $300/month. Unfortunately, I failed at doing this; way too many variables and too much missing data.
However, I am able to provide a sneak peak at average rates on the New Mexico individual and small group markets next year, for individual enrollees at 5 different ages, in all 5 different coverage regions:
This issue brief reflects lessons learned from how consumers handled the new intersections between health coverage and the tax filing process in 2015. Drawing on public data as well as Enroll America’s private survey research and outreach efforts, this issue brief examines the policy framework underpinning the linkages between taxes and health coverage, messaging considerations and opportunities, and effective partnerships to maximize enrollment. Based on this analysis, the report concludes with recommendations for policymakers and other enrollment stakeholders about how to improve the consumer experience.
Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-UT) stumbled near the start of a tense hearing on Tuesday when Planned Parenthood President Cecile Richards told him to check his sources on a chart that he said showed a decrease in breast exams and an increase in abortions by the organization.
Every month the CMS division of the HHS Dept. issues a formal Medicaid/CHIP enrollment report, and pretty much every month (until now) the numbers have grown rapidly. This has been the case even during the "off-season", since there isn't an off season for Medicaid/CHIP enrollment; those eligible for the programs can enroll year-round (on the other hand, promotion/outreach efforts are higher during Open Enrollment, so enrollment does still tend to be more rapid during that period).
South Dakota may join 30 other states in expanding its Medicaid program if federal officials approve a plan Gov. Dennis Daugaard is set to outline to the nation’s top health and human services administrator in Washington on Tuesday.
The Republican governor is meeting with Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Burwell to explain the plan, and the federal government has so far been more open to discussions than in the past, said Tony Venhuizen, chief of staff to Daugaard. The proposal, which is in its early stages, would make about 48,500 South Dakota residents newly eligible for the program.
The twist this time is that the Indian Health Service, which provides healthcare coverage for around 2 million Native Americans nationally, would be involved:
A few weeks ago, I crunched the (minimal) enrollment/rate numbers for South Dakota and came up with a fairly ugly weighted average rate hike of 27.4% (ouch). Being such a small state & population, there are only 5 insurance companies total offering individual policies either or off the exchange: Avera, Sanford, Welmark, Celtic and SD State Medical Holding, otherwise known as "DAKOTACARE" for some reason (and no, I refuse to capitalize the whole thing in the headline).
This evening Louise Norris informed me that DAKOTACARE has made 2 rather startling changes of plan: First, they're dropping off of the ACA exchange and will only be selling policies off-exchange...and instead of their previously-requested 18-20% rate hike, they've suddenly decided that they have to jack up rates an eyebrow-raising 63% next year.
