Minnesota

Last year, Minnesota's ACA exchange, MNsure, reported the following QHP selections numbers for the first two weeks of Open Enrollment (technically the first 13 days):

BY THE NUMBERS—

  • Private health plan sign ups—97,944
  • Call volume—14,335
  • Average speed of answer—7 seconds
  • Plan comparison sessions—49,064

The sign-ups reported include new consumers, renewing consumers who have come back and shopped for a new plan for 2019, and renewing consumers who are continuing their previous plan for 2019.

Of those, around 2,400 were new enrollees; the other 95.5K were renewals of existing enrollees (either active or auto-renewals).

For 2020, this just came in from MNsure:

Strong Interest During MNsure's First 10 days; Open Enrollment Update = November 13, 2019

This just in via MNsure (Minesota's ACA exchange):

MNsure update on first week of open enrollment

ST. PAUL—MNsure CEO Nate Clark issued the following statement recapping the first full week of open enrollment:

“MNsure has seen strong and steady interest during the first week of open enrollment. Minnesotans have six weeks left to sign up for their 2020 coverage. Remember, MNsure is the only place Minnesotans can get access to tax credits that could lower premium costs. We’ve also got a statewide network of assisters who offer free, in-person help so consumers can be sure they’re finding the health care plan that meets their needs.”

Open enrollment figures will be released next Wednesday (11/13) at MNsure’s public board meeting at 1 p.m.

By the numbers: As of end of day, November 7

And we're off! via Minnesota's ACA exchange, MNsure.org:

MNsure Open Enrollment begins Today and Runs through December 23

ST. PAUL, Minn.—MNsure's seventh open enrollment period begins today, November 1. Minnesotans looking for coverage should visit MNsure.org to shop and compare plans. MNsure's seven-week open enrollment period runs until December 23, 2019.

Representatives from MNsure's Contact Center will be answering calls from 7 a.m. until 6 p.m. this evening. Extended hours can be found below. 

Help is available:

I'm not sure how this slipped by me, but in addition to Covered California already having launched their 2020 Open Enrollment Period yesterday, five other state-based ACA exchanges are already partly open as well. That is, you can shop around, compare prices on next year's health insurance policies and check and see what sort of financial assistance you may be eligible for:

I'm not sure when the other 7 state-based exchanges will launch their 2020 window shopping tools, nor do I know when HealthCare.Gov's window shopping will be open for the other 38 states, although I believe they usually do so about a week ahead of the official November 1st Open Enrollment Period launch date.

via MNsure:

Getting ready for MNsure's open enrollment period: what to know and how to prepare

  • Open enrollment runs November 1 through December 23, 2019

ST. PAUL, Minn. — The MNsure open enrollment period begins in less than one month. To ensure Minnesotans are prepared to shop and enroll in coverage starting November 1, MNsure is highlighting some important information:

Open enrollment is shorter this year — don't miss out on coverage

MNsure's open enrollment period for 2020 health and dental coverage will be seven weeks long — beginning November 1, 2019, and ending December 23, 2019. Minnesotans should note that open enrollment is shorter than previous years and all those who enroll during open enrollment will have a start date of January 1, 2020.

MNsure assisters are ready to help — schedule an appointment today

MNsure has a statewide network of expert assisters who can help Minnesotans apply and enroll, free of charge. The assister can be a navigator or a broker.

Back in July, I noted that the Minnesota Commerce Department announced the preliminary 2020 rate changes for carriers on the individual and small group markets. At the time, the weighted average increases were roughly 1.6% and 5.5% respectively, although the enrollment estimates for each carrier were estimates only.

Today, the MN Commerce Dept. announced the approved rates for 2020, and in both markets, they shaved average premiums down a couple of points. Here's the actual Commerce Dept. press release:

Commerce releases 2020 health insurance rates for Minnesota

Minnesota’s individual and small group health insurance market rates for 2020 reflect stabilized markets, according to information released today by the Minnesota Department of Commerce in advance of the open enrollment period beginning November 1.

Long-time readers may have noticed that, while I've obviously ripped on the Trump Administration a lot for the various ways they've screwed around with administration of the ACA over the past 2 1/2 years, there's a handful of actions they've taken which I haven't criticized them for...or at least, which I've been fairly circumstpect about being too critical about.

The biggest, and perhaps most surprising, of the latter is the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid (CMS) decision to shorten the offiical Open Enrollment Period (OEP) roughly in half, from three months (Nov. 1st - Jan. 31st) down to just six weeks (Nov. 1st - Dec. 15th). There's a couple of reasons for this.

First and foremost...the Obama Administration was already planning on shortening the period...it's just that they intended to make the change starting in 2018 instead of 2017. This is from February 2016, long before Trump even secured the GOP nomination:

MLR rebate payments for 2018 are being sent out to enrollees even as I type this. The data for 2018 MLR rebates won't be officially posted for another month or so, but I've managed to acquire it early, and after a lot of number-crunching the data, I've recompiled it into an easy-to-read format.

But that's not all! In addition to the actual 2018 MLR rebates, I've gone one step further and have taken an early crack at trying to figure out what 2019 MLR rebates might end up looking like next year (for the Individual Market only). In order to do this, I had to make several very large assumptions:

The Minnesota Commerce Dept. just posted their preliminary 2020 Individual and Small Group rate changes. The actual rate changes are pretty straightforward...a mere 1.6% average rate increase on the ACA Individual Market, and a 5.5% increase on the Small Group market.

Unfortunately, the actual effectuated enrollment for each carrier (which I use to calculate the weighted average) was provided in either the MN Commece website post or even in the currently-available raw SERFF rate filing forms, so I had to put together estimates based on last year's market share numbers, modified for 2019 based on the on-exchange portion of the total enrollment for the Indy market (for the small group market I just went with the straight 2018 shares).

Minnesota

Back in March, I noted that Democratic Minnesota Governor Tim Walz had put forth a pretty ambitious budget proposal, which included two pretty eyebrow-raising ACA-related funding proposals:

The Governor will take immediate action by creating a subsidy program to reduce by 20 percent the monthly premiums for Minnesotans who receive their insurance through MNSure. This subsidy will be applied directly against a consumer’s premiums. This proposal provides relief to Minnesotans with incomes over 400 percent of the federal poverty level do not qualify for the federal premium tax credit which helps lower the costs of health insurance premiums. Up to 80,000 people could participate in the program, reducing the out-of-pocket costs of their health insurance premiums.

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