A new set of proposals provide some of the strongest evidence yet that Obamacare -- once on the verge of collapse in Tennessee -- has stabilized.
The state’s largest insurance company, BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee, plans to reenter the Affordable Care Act marketplace in Nashville, Memphis and surrounding counties next year, providing another option for residents on Obamacare. Additionally, two other insurance companies that already offer Obamacare in these cities, Cigna and Oscar Health, are planning to significantly reduce the cost of their coverage plans.
Although the proposals are not final, it appears Tennesseans will have more options and competitive prices in the coming year, said Kevin Walters, a spokesman for the Department of Commerce and Insurance.
The Connecticut Insurance Department has posted the initial proposed health insurance rate filings for the 2020 individual and small group markets. There are 14 filings made by 10 health insurers for plans that currently cover about 242,000 people.
Two carriers – Anthem and ConnectiCare Benefits Inc. (CBI) – have filed rates for both individual and small group plans that will be marketed through Access Health CT, the state-sponsored health insurance exchange.
The 2020 rate proposals for the individual market are on average lower than last year while the small group market is on average slightly higher than last year.
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.
Not much of an entry, but still: A month ago, the Oregon Division of Financial Regulation posted the requested 2020 rate changes for the Individual and Small Group health insurance markets: 3.3% on average for the Indy market, 8.7% for the sm. group market.
Today, after reviewing the requests from the insurance carriers, the department has posted their "semi-final" rates. These may still see some additional tweaking before the final, approved rates are locked in, but the odds are that these will be the final rates:
Salem — Oregonians can now see the state’s preliminary rate decisions for 2020 individual and small employer health insurance plans. The Division of Financial Regulation must review and approve any rates before they can be charged to policyholders.
Preliminary rate decisions are for individuals who buy their own coverage rather than getting it through an employer and for small businesses.
The state of Maine's Bureau of Professional & Financial Regulation has released their preliminary 2020 rate filings for the Individual and Small Group markets. Overall, the three carriers participating in their individual market are seeking a weighted average rate increase of 4.7% vs. last year. If approved as is, that would bring the average unsubsidized premium up from $675/month to $707/month, or around $381/year.
It's important to keep in mind why premiums are going up. I've included screenshots of the rate filing memos--Maine Community Health Options, which holds over 50% of the individual marketshare, clarifies that the combination of the individual mandate being repealed and the expansion of #ShortAssPlans are causing an 11% increase. They also note that Maine's recent Medicaid expansion implementation may be a factor, although normally that reduces premiums since lower-income populations tend to be less healthy than higher-income populations, so I'm not sure what to make of that.
Along with Massachusetts and Vermont, the District of Columbia merges their Individual and Small Group markets for purposes of risk pools and risk adjustment. This does not, however, necessarily mean that their Indy and Sm. Group average premium changes are identical. For one thing, there are more carriers which offer small group plans than individual market plans; for another, the market share ratios between the two differ.
Washington, DC – The District of Columbia Department of Insurance, Securities and Banking (DISB) received 181 proposed health insurance plan rates for review from Aetna, CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield, Kaiser Permanente and United Healthcare in advance of open enrollment for plan year 2020 on DC Health Link, the District of Columbia’s health insurance marketplace.
Last year individual market carriers here in my home state of Michigan only raised premiums 1.7% on average in 2019, with Oscar Insurance Co. being a new addition to the market. For 2020, they're reducing average premiums by about 2.0%. Oscar made very little headway in their debut year, only enrolling 649 people statewide.
On the surface, it looks like Michigan's total ACA-compliant individual market has plummeted by a whopping 18% (281K vs. 344K last year). However, this can be misleading because the enrollment numbers listed each year only include the number of enrollees actually impacted by the rate changes. For instance, if a carrier pulls out of half the state, then a chunk of their current total enrollment won't be listed since enrollees in that half aren't seeing their current premiums change...they'll be losing coverage altogether and will have to switch to a different carrier.
The New Mexico Office of the Superintendent of Insurance website just posted the preliminary 2020 insurance rate filings. Here's the full list, which includes a mish-mash of Individual Market, Large Group and Small Group Market policies, with a Pediatric Dental standalone plan thrown in as well.
It's worth noting that the NM carriers are being very careful to separate out on & off-exchange policies into separate listings even though they're all part of the same risk pool, and they're even separating out off-exchange "Mirrored" policies, which refers to CSR Silver Switching; this is a very good thing.
I've cleaned up the listings and plugged in the weighted average rate increases in the table below this one:
I was surprised to realize that I haven't written a word about Wisconsin since before the midterm election last fall, when Democrat Tony Evers defeated Republican incumbent Scott Walker. Since then, the state has actually gone through a lot of turmoil regarding healthcare policy (and every other policy as well, of course). The GOP still controls both the state House and Senate, so during the lame duck session they tried to pull a whole mess of crap legislation to strip Evers of his authority before he even took office...as well as that of incoming Democratic state Attorney General, Josh Kaul, to prevent him from withdrawing from the plaintiff's side in the #TexasFoldEm lawsuit, among other things.
Thirteen health insurers request record-low increase of less than 1%; Two new insurers join individual market in 2020
June 3, 2019
OLYMPIA, Wash. – Thirteen health insurers filed a record-low average proposed rate increase of 0.96% for the 2020 individual health insurance market. Also, two new insurers — PacificSource Health Plans and Providence Health Plan — are joining Washington’s market next year.
All 39 counties will have at least one insurer selling inside the Exchange, Washington Healthplanfinder.
