Lots of stuff happening fast & furious these days as #OE4 approaches. Instead of individual posts, I'm gonna cram 7 state updates into a single one...and am also cheating a bit by cribbing off of excellent work by Louise Norris over at healthinsurance.org (which is fair, since she also gets some of her data from me as well):
ALABAMA: Here's what my requested rate hike table looked like for Alabama on August 1st:
The Connecticut average requested rate hike has jumped around a lot over the summer. It started out at roughly 21.3% back in June, then increased to 22.2% after the HealthyCT Co-Op announced they were closing up shop. Then, several of the carriers submitted revised rate hike requests, bumping the average up further to around 26.8%.
Well, over the holiday weekend, the CT Mirror reports that the CT Dept. of Insurance released their response to the requests. There were also yet more last-minute filing changes. I've updated the spreadsheet with both the final requests as well as the approvals...but there are a copule of major blank spaces I still have to fill in:
Most Connecticut health insurance plans sold through individual and small group markets will undergo steep rate hikes next year, although in some cases, the prices will not go up by as much as carriers had sought.
OK, make that four states in which at least one major carrier has submitted an updated rate filing request since I originally estimated the statewide average.
Shortly after that, however, HealthyCT became the latest ACA-created Co-Op to fail, meaning their 16,000 or so current enrollees will have to shop around for new coverage next year. I revised the numbers accordingly and the average request bumped up a bit to 22.2%...
ACCESS HEALTH CT PROVIDES TRANSITIONAL MEDICAL ASSISTANCE ENROLLMENT UPDATE
2,846 individuals have enrolled in a new healthcare plan
Hartford, Conn. (July 8, 2016) - Access Health CT (AHCT) CEO Jim Wadleigh provided an update today on enrollment of approximately 13,811 parents and caregivers who will lose their Transitional Medical Assistance (TMA) on July 31st when they no longer meet the HUSKY A eligibility requirements due to a change in legislation last year. As of July 7, 2016, 2,846 individuals have enrolled in a new healthcare plan via the exchange. Of those, 1,966 applications have been re-determined eligible for coverage in a HUSKY program through the integrated eligibility system with the Department of Social Services, and 880 have enrolled in a Qualified Health Plan (QHP) with AHCT.
OK, this blows. Last year, you'll recall that about a dozen of two dozen ACA-created Co-Ops melted down, one after another, throughout August, September and October. There were a lot of reasons behind their failure, but one of the biggest ones had to do with the infamous Risk Corridor Massacre brouhaha.
As I noted last fall, "Risk Corridors" were one of three programs put into place by the federal government which are intended to smooth the way for the insurance carriers as they try to navigate the rocky, uncertain terrain of the new health insurance landscape under the ACA. Two of the programs--Risk Corridors and Reinsurance--were never intended to last more than the first 3 years of the exchanges anyway (that is, they've always been scheduled to be discontinued at the end of 2016). Unfortunately, due to the GOP yanking the rug out from under the Risk Corridor program, only 13% of the money which was supposed to be paid out to the eligible carriers ever was last year, causing several co-ops (and at least one private carrier) to go belly-up...and leaving many of the remaining co-ops on very shaky financial ground.
The third program, "Risk Adjustment", is permanent. Risk Corridors were set up to shift funds from carriers which lost more than a certain amount of money from carriers which earned more than a certain amount of money. Risk Adjustment, on the other hand, is designed to shift funds from carriers which happened to enroll lower-risk enrollees to those which enrolled higher-risk enrollees. This may sound similar on the surface, and I'm assuming there's quite a bit of overlap between the two in practice, but that's an important distinction.
Thanks to commenter "Junaed S" who directed me towards this simple, cut 'n dry PDF from the Connecticut Dept. of Insurance detailing the requested rate hikes for the CT individual and small group markets for 2017:
In a classic case of missing the forest for the trees, I posted two very wonky, detailed entries over the past couple of days about Minnesota and Connecticut's latest enrollment numbers...but completely missed one crucially important data point.
The go-to journalist in Connecticut for all things Obamacare-related is Arielle Levin Becker. Judging from her feed this AM, it sounds like she's livetweeting the monthly AccessHealthCT board meeting. Here's her key points:
CT exchange enrollment down about 9.2 percent from end of open enrollment. Also about 2% shift from subsidized to unsubsidized.
However, it's also worth keeping in mind that in many of these states, United has a pretty small presence to begin with. Case in point: Connecticut:
LT. GOVERNOR WYMAN, ACCESS HEALTH CT CEO WADLEIGH STATEMENTS ON UNITED HEALTHCARE ANNOUNCEMENT
(HARTFORD, CT) – Lieutenant Governor Nancy Wyman, Chair of the Access Health CT (AHCT) Board, and AHCT CEO Jim Wadleigh today issued the following statements on the announcement that in 2017, United Healthcare is pulling out of most state healthcare marketplaces:
About 8,000 CT exchange customers didn’t pay first bill
About 8,000 people who signed up for coverage through the Connecticut’s health insurance exchange missed the deadline for their first payment and lost coverage, exchange CEO Jim Wadleigh said Monday.
“This number is bigger than we were anticipating,” Wadleigh said. Just over 116,000 people signed up for private insurance through Access Health CT, the state’s exchange, during the open enrollment period that ended Jan. 31. “The fact that all these customers have not made their first payment was kind of a shock to even us.”
