The obligatory update. Assuming around 8,000 off-season QHP selections per day nationally (which was recently confirmed by CMS...even higher than the 7,500/day I had previously been estimating), the grand total should be crossing the 13.5 million mark sometime this holiday weekend if it hasn't already.
This won't likely have any impact on the currently effectuated number of course, which is likely still hovering around the 10.4 million mark, but it's still an important symbolic milestone to achieve.
Montana's Dept. of Insurance website doesn't really provide the actual rate filings (or if it does, I can't find them), but it does include this handy chart laying out every carrier offering individual policies in the state (there's only four of them, and one, Assurant, just went belly-up this past spring). That leaves just three companies to track: BCBS of Montana, Montana Health COOP and PacificSource.
Fortunately (well, unfortunately, actually), all 3 of these are listed on Healthcare.Gov's "Rate Review" website, making it fairly easy to generate the weighted average. Sadly, it's grim news in Big Sky country next year:
According to their report, "100%" of South Dakota's individual insurance market products have requested double-digit rate hikes next year, which sounds bad.
However, also according to their report, "0%" of those products are seeking hikes higher than 20%.
According to Agile Health Insurance, in other words, every single South Dakota insurance plan sold on Healthcare.Gov is seeking somewhere between 10-20% hikes, right?
OK...but look what happens when you include the off-exchange "products" as well:
Basically, they looked at the total number of products (ie, collections of plans from the same insurer) in each state and broke them down by how many were seeking rate hikes of <10%, 10-20%, 20-30% and >30%, then divided those policies into the total number offered in the state.
Agile's report concludes that
Overall, 31 percent of Obamacare individual marketplace products had a double-digit rate hike proposed for 2016. Fourteen percent of Obamacare products on the federal exchange had a proposed rate hike of at least 20 percent, while 7 percent of products had a proposed rate hike of at least 30 percent.
It's important to read Mangan's opening sentence carefully, however:
Maryland was one of the first states to release their list of requested 2016 rate hikes, and caused quite a stir at the time due to the largest player in the state, CareFirst, asking for a whopping 30% rate hike. At the time, I didn't have much to go on in terms of hard enrollment numbers, but it looked like the weighted average request would be somewhat lower, perhaps around 22-23%.
Today, the Maryland Dept. of Insurance has released the final, approved rate changes, and while 5 of the 8 companies on the individual exchange saw reductions in their rate change (2 others were approved as is, and one, Kaiser Health Plan was actually increased from 4.8% to 10%), it's still difficult to lock down a fully weighted average due to some crucial enrollment data missing.
I was able to track down the "covered lives" data for 5 of the eight companies.
CMS awards $67 million in Affordable Care Act funding to help consumers sign-up for affordable Health Insurance Marketplace coverage in 2016
With Marketplace Open Enrollment set to begin on November 1, 2015, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) today announced grant awards totaling $67 million to support outreach efforts designed to connect people with local help as they seek to understand the coverage options and financial assistance available at HealthCare.gov.Awarded to 100 organizations located in 34 states that operate Federally Facilitated Marketplaces, State Partnership Marketplaces, and supported State-Based Marketplaces, the three year-long Marketplace Navigator grants will fuel efforts to help consumers enroll in a health plan that fits their budget and best meets their family’s needs.
Twenty-seven Alaskans were approved for benefits under Medicaid expansion Tuesday, the first day of the broadened health care program, the state Department of Health and Social Services announced Wednesday.
According to state officials, about 40,000 people are potentially eligible for the expansion program, although as Xpostfactoid pointed out a month or so ago, the Kaiser Family Foundation has a much lower estimate (more like 11,000).
Either way, the actual number enrolled or in the process is quite a bit higher than just 27...
A top official at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce said Thursday that the fight against Obamacare is largely over and that critics' energies were better spent fixing specific problems caused by the landmark healthcare legislation.
"There is a growing realization that repeal won't happen," Randy Johnson, the chamber's senior vice president of labor, immigration and employee benefits, told reporters during a Thursday press conference. "Some of the Republican proposals [relating to Obamacare] reflect this."
The nation's biggest business lobby was a staunch opponent of the legislation that created the Affordable Care Act in 2010. Johnson said the Chamber hadn't changed its opinion of the bill but did not see a viable path toward repeal. Instead, he said the most fruitful path involved legislation offering "targeted" changes to specific parts of the law.
"There is no unscrambling the omelette," Johnson said.
Native Americans can get an exemption from the requirement that everybody have health insurance. Under the health law, however, many Native Americans can get coverage under Medicaid, which serves low-income Americans, or buy subsidized plans through insurance exchanges. That allows them to receive treatment from private doctors and hospitals rather than rely solely on government and tribal facilities.
And the coverage allows Indian health facilities, which tribal leaders say are chronically underfunded, to bill insurers for care they already provide. And that additional revenue means doctors and hospitals can also offer new services.
Advocates also see the health law as a chance to reduce the health disparities that have long afflicted Native Americans, including rates of diabetes that are three times higher than the U.S. population and a life span that is four years shorter.
CMS awards $67 million in Affordable Care Act funding to help consumers sign-up for affordable Health Insurance Marketplace coverage in 2016
With Marketplace Open Enrollment set to begin on November 1, 2015, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) today announced grant awards totaling $67 million to support outreach efforts designed to connect people with local help as they seek to understand the coverage options and financial assistance available at HealthCare.gov. Awarded to 100 organizations located in 34 states that operate Federally Facilitated Marketplaces, State Partnership Marketplaces, and supported State-Based Marketplaces, the three year-long Marketplace Navigator grants will fuel efforts to help consumers enroll in a health plan that fits their budget and best meets their family’s needs.
This money is for the Navigator organizations, which effectively act as non-commissioned insurance brokers to help people enroll for healthcare policies via Healthcare.Gov.
