BeWellnm Health Insurance Enrollment Deadline Extended
New Mexicans Have Until December 31, 2021 to Enroll in Comprehensive and Affordable Health Care Coverage Beginning January 1, 2022
Albuquerque, N.M. (December 23, 2021) – Beginning today, beWellnm, the New Mexico Health Insurance Exchange, is extending its enrollment period and premium payments for effective coverage beginning January 1, 2022. New Mexicans now have until December 31, 2021 to enroll and pay their premium to receive coverage for Plan Year 2022 starting the first of the year. New Mexico residents who would prefer to have effective coverage beginning February 1, 2022 still have until January 15, 2022 to enroll.
BeWellnm is excited to provide the Open Enrollment report through Week five. The report overview includes, but is not limited to plan selections, customer engagement center volume and website traffic.
Approximately 39,200 New Mexicans have a plan selection. In an effort to ensure the accuracy of all numbers, new consumers and re- enrollees are not being reported on this week. A return of these fields is anticipated soon.
As a reminder, passive enrollees were handled earlier for this year to support the transition from Healthcare.gov to New Mexico’s solution. This offers additional time for payment to ensure that New Mexicans who have a plan stay covered. Individuals can still shop, compare, and change their plan until January 15th, 2022.
Final numbers, where accounts have been reviewed for errors or duplication, will be reported at the appropriate time after Open Enrollment.
In week four of the 2022 Open Enrollment Period, over 37,000 New Mexicans have an active plan selection. This includes 4,698 existing enrollees who chose a new plan or actively chose to keep their current plan, 2,505 new consumers, and 30,509 passive re-enrollees. There were also 8,061 dental plan selections. Consistent with CMS, enrollment weeks are measured Sunday through Saturday.
Passive enrollees were handled earlier for this year to support the transition from Healthcare.gov to New Mexico’s solution. This offers additional time for payment to ensure that New Mexicans who have a plan stay covered. Individuals can still shop, compare, and change their plan.
New Mexico's final/approved 2022 premium rate changes are now live, though the searchable database seems to be having some technical layout glitches. For some reason there's a good 5-6 entries for each carrier instead of just 2 (one for the individual market, one for small group plans); I think this is because New Mexico requires separate filings for on- and off-exchange policies, although there seem to be duplicates even then.
In any event, of the 30+ states I've written up so far, New Mexico has by far the highest average unsubsidized rate increases, at 15.5%. Most of this is due to Molina Healthcare's shocking 25.6% increase, which seems to have been approved as is. True Health is also asking for double-digit increases on the individual market.
The Small Group market in the Land of Enchantment is also in the double digits, at +11.5% on average. Presbyterian not only has two small group entries, they seem to have dramatically different enrollment numbers for each; I'm not sure what to make of that.
I've once again relaunched my project from last fall to track Medicaid enrollment (both standard and expansion alike) on a monthly basis for every state dating back to the ACA being signed into law.
For the various enrollment data, I'm using data from Medicaid.gov's Medicaid Enrollment Data Collected Through MBES reports. Unfortunately, they've only published enrollment data through December 2020. In some states I've been able to get more recent enrollment data from state websites and other sources.
Today I'm presenting New Mexico.
For enrollment data from January 2021 on, I'm relying on adjusted estimates based on raw data from the New Mexico Dept. of Health.
Now that I've developed a standardized format/layout & methodology for tracking both state- and county-level COVID vaccination levels by partisan lean (which can also be easily applied to other variables like education level, median income, population density, ethnicity, etc), I've started moving beyond my home state of Michigan.
WARNING: The CDC lists ~199,000 New Mexico residents (a whopping 25% of the total fully vaccinated) whose county of residence is unknown. This could easily skew the actual results below one way or the other.
NOTE: This is an updated version of a post from a couple of months ago. Since then, there's been a MASSIVELY important development: The passage of the American Rescue Plan, which includes a dramatic upgrade in ACA subsidies for not only the millions of people already receiving them, but for millions more who didn't previously qualify for financial assistance.
Much has been written by myself and others (especially the Kaiser Family Foundation) about the fact that millions of uninsured Americans are eligible for ZERO PREMIUM Bronze ACA healthcare policies.
I say "Zero Premium" instead of "Free" because there's still deductibles and co-pays involved, although all ACA plans also include a long list of free preventative services from physicals and blood screenings to mammograms and immunizations with no deductible or co-pay involved.
New Mexico would raise a state health-insurance tax and dedicate the new revenue to programs intended to make health care more affordable under a proposal that passed the state House on Sunday.
Rep. Deborah Armstrong, D-Albuquerque, described the legislation as an unusual opportunity to generate more revenue for health care without increasing the total amount consumers now pay.
The increased state tax would partially replace a federal tax that’s being repealed, she said, meaning health insurance carriers would actually be charged less in taxes than they are now, even after the state increase.
The legislation, House Bill 278, would raise about $125 million in annual revenue when fully phased in — the bulk of it dedicated to a new fund for health care affordability, according to legislative analysts.
New Mexico Superintendent of Insurance Announces Premium Decreases for 2021
Santa Fe, NM –New Mexico Superintendent of Insurance Russell Toal announced today that health insurance premiums will decrease significantly for individuals and families purchasing their own coverage through beWellnm (New Mexico’s Health Insurance Exchange). Average plan prices dropped in the Bronze, Silver, and Gold plan categories across the state. Silver plans, the most common plan purchased on the individual Exchange, will decrease between 8.1 and 13.5 percent on average. Small businesses will experience a 6.7 percent average premium decrease on beWellnm.
The Office of Superintendent of Insurance (OSI) reviews health insurance filings annually to determine whether rates are reasonable and fair.
“After a rigorous review of health insurance filings, our office is pleased to report that premiums are going down in 2021,” said Superintendent Toal. “Not only are rates decreasing, but New Mexico will have more health plans competing in the marketplace than ever before”
New Mexico is the latest state to post their preliminary 2021 rate change filings for both the individual and small group markets. There's several key things to note here:
