IMPORTANT:See this detailed explanation of how I've come up with the following estimated maximum weighted average rate increase request for New Jersey
Assuming you've read through the explanation linked to above, here's my best estimate of the maximum possible and most likely average rate increase requests for the New Jersey individual market:
Again, the full explanation is included in the Missouri estimate, but to the best of my knowledge, it looks like the companies requesting rate increases higher than 10% come in at a weighted 13.4% increase, but only make up about 50% of the total ACA-compliant individual market, with several other companies (Oscar, AmeriHealth & possibly other off-exchange only companies) requesting increases of less than 10% (or possibly even decreases in some cases) and making up the other half.
Now that the Supreme Court has rendered its decision in King v. Burwell on federal subsidies under the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and Open Enrollment is approaching, there is no better time to reflect on the important mission of access to affordable and quality health coverage for the residents of all states. Health insurance is complex; it engages a range of stakeholders from state agencies and insurance carriers to brokers and solution providers, it requires eligibility determination, various payment models, and a myriad of funding mechanisms, to name a few.
Senate Republican leaders this week narrowly averted an intra-party battle over ObamaCare by again promising to get a repeal bill to the president’s desk through budget reconciliation.
Last week I took the known 2016 Florida rate increase requests (around 14.7% weighted average for 10 companies with around 713,000 enrollees) and took my best shot at trying to estimate what the rest of Florida's ACA-compliant individual market might look like.
In order to do this properly, I'd need 2 pieces of data: First, the weighted average increase request for the 6 additionalcompanies which I didn't already have rate requests for; and second, the total ACA-compliant enrollment number for those 6 companies.
During the fiscal year that ended June 30, 2014, the most recent for which data is available, Planned Parenthood affiliates around the country received $528.4 million in government funds (a combination of state, federal and sometimes local government dollars), according to the organization's ownannual report and information it's required to share with the IRS.
CONGRESSIONAL BUDGET OFFICE
Keith Hall, Director
U.S. Congress
Washington, DC 20515
August 3, 2015
Honorable Mike Enzi
Chairman
Committee on the Budget
United States Senate
Washington, DC 20510
Re: Budgetary Effects of S. 1881
Dear Mr. Chairman:
Last week, CBO provided the following information in response to a request for an estimate of the budgetary effects of S. 1881:
S. 1881, which would prohibit federal funds from being made available to Planned Parenthood Federation of America or any of its affiliates, could affect direct spending for the Medicaid program; however, CBO has not determined whether the legislation would increase or decrease the program’s spending. Completing an estimate of such effects would take some time.
MAYAGÜEZ, P.R. — The first visible sign that the health care system in Puerto Rico was seriously in trouble was when a steady stream of doctors — more than 3,000 in five years — began to leave the island for more lucrative, less stressful jobs on the mainland.
Now, as Puerto Rico faces another hefty cut to a popular Medicareprogram and grapples with an alarming shortage of Medicaid funds, its health care system is headed for an all-out crisis, which could further undermine the island’s gutted economy.
Now that Congress and the courts have failed to overhaul Obamacare, states are eyeing the only current remaining opportunity to modify the healthcare law — this time from the inside out.
I've mused before about how Avik Roy has a tendency to write lengthy screeds which breathlessly report developments which seem, to him, to be shocking revelations which will no doubt blow the lid off of some sort of nefarious actions on the part of President Obama, the HHS Dept. or Democrats in general...but which, when looked at by a rational person, tend to be fairly innocuous developments which were either already known, patently obvious and/or pretty much non-events in the scheme of things.
For instance, check out this blockbuster from back in March, regarding the HHS Dept's contingency plan in the event that the Obama administration had lost the King v. Burwell case at the Supreme Court (spoiler: they ended up winning):
If you ask most people what the earliest utterly absurd plot point in the original Star Wars movie ("A New Hope", 1977) was, they'd probably say the part about 7 minutes in where Gunnery Captain Bolvan tells Lieutenant Hija (yeah, I looked up their names) to "hold his fire" and not to bother shooting down the escape pod containing R2-D2 and C-3PO, because there were "no life forms onboard" (an odd thing to say in a universe filled with sentient robots...not to mention that Leia could have simply stowed the records on a hard drive or whatever and tossed it into the escape pod by itself for future recovery, but whatever).
Just 2 days ago I posted an analysis of the New York individual market rate increase requests for 2016. My takeaway was that the weighted average requested was 10.0%, with the usual caveats about rounding errors, estimates of the total individual market size and so forth. Plus, of course, these were just requested increases, not final ones.
NEW YORK STATE DEPARTMENT OF FINANCIAL SERVICES ANNOUNCES 2016 HEALTH INSURANCE PREMIUM RATES, INCLUDING RATES FOR NY STATE OF HEALTH
Individual Rates for 2016 Remain Nearly 50% Lower than Before Establishment of New York’s Health Exchange
DFS Rate Reduction Actions Will Save Consumers More than $430 million
New Essential Plan Will Lower Premiums to $20 or Less and Provide Better Benefits for Lower-income New Yorkers
IMPORTANT:See this detailed explanation of how I've come up with the following estimated maximum weighted average rate increase request for Texas.
UPDATE 8/4/15: Revised table to display maximum, likely and minimum statewide average increase requests:
Assuming you've read through the explanation linked to above, here's my best estimate of the maximum possible rate increase requests for the Texas individual market:
