Way back in May (a lifetime ago), Vermont was among the first states to publicly post their preliminary 2021 rate filings for their combined individual & small group market. At the time, the carriers were requesting an average 6.8% rate increase, and noted that they had no clue how much to tack on to cover themselves for the COVID-19 factor...or to even reduce rates because of it.
This week, the Vermont insurance regulatory board issued their final decisions about both BCBS of Vermont and MVP Health Plan, and cut down on each of their requested increases by several points (h/t Louise Norris for the links):
Due to the COVID-19 emergency, Vermont Health Connect has opened a Special Enrollment Period until May 15, 2020. During this time, any uninsured Vermonter can sign up for a Qualified Health Plan through Vermont Health Connect. Qualified families can also get financial help paying for coverage.. Please call us at 1-855-899-9600 to learn more.
Annnnnd we're off! In the middle of a deadly global pandemic which has already killed more than 85,000 Americans and completely disrupted the entire U.S. healthcare system, private insurance carriers still have to go about preparing their annual premium rate change filings for 2021. This is a long, complicated process which begins a good nine months before the new plans and prices are actually enrolled in.
The task of setting 2020 premiums was the first time since the ACA went into effect which was relatively calm for insurance carrier actuaries. Unlike setting rates for 2014 or 2015, they weren't dealing with a complete overhaul of the entire insurance industry. Unlike 2016-2017, they weren't dealing with the prospect of ACA premiums being crippled for 3/4 of the country (via King v. Burwell) or the fallout of the Risk Corridor Massacre. Unlike 2018, they weren't dealing with how to deal with CSR rembursements being cut off or the entire ACA being repealed by Congress. Unlike 2019, they didn't have the unknown impact of the individual mandate being repealed to consider.
Due to the COVID-19 emergency, Vermont Health Connect has opened a Special Enrollment Period until May 15, 2020. During this time, any uninsured Vermonter can sign up for a Qualified Health Plan through Vermont Health Connect. Qualified families can also get financial help paying for coverage.. Please call us at 1-855-899-9600 to learn more.
There was some confusion about the original deadline (they said "month long" which suggested April 20th, but a note on their website last week set it as April 17th, which is this Friday).
Due to the COVID-19 emergency, Vermont Health Connect has opened a Special Enrollment Period until May 15, 2020. During this time, any uninsured Vermonter can sign up for a Qualified Health Plan through Vermont Health Connect. Qualified families can also get financial help paying for coverage.. Please call us at 1-855-899-9600 to learn more.
Unlike Connecticut, Nevada and Washington State, it doesn't sound like you necessarily have to call the VT exchange to actually enroll, but I'd recommend doing so anyway since I'm not sure how they're working it logistically.
The State of Vermont has made temporary changes to assure that Vermonters have access to health insurance. Please visit https://t.co/dXz4Cd2yQm for more information
ALL OTHER STATES: You may qualify for a 60-day Special Enrollment Period (SEP) if you've recently lost (or will soon lose) your employer-based healthcare coverage, or if you've experienced other Qualifying Life Events (QLE) such as getting marrinew yorked/divorced, moving, giving birth/adopting a child, getting out of prison, turning 26 etc. For these SEPs you may have to provide documentation to verify your QLE. Visit HealthCare.Gov or your state's ACA exchange website for details on the process.
The total number of Individual Market enrollees is 33,982 enrollees as of the end of January. It's important to understand that this is not the same as the number of people who enrolled on the ACA exchange during Open Enrollment, for two reasons: First, 2020 OEP in Vermont ended on December 15th, 2019; this data is as of January 31st. Second, the tables below include both on- and off-exchange enrollees, as opposed to on-exchange only.
Last March I wrote an analysis of H.R.1868, the House Democrats bill that comprises the core of the larger H.R.1884 "ACA 2.0" bill. H.R.1884 includes a suite of about a dozen provisions to protect, repair and strengthen the ACA, but the House Dems also broke the larger piece of legislation down into a dozen smaller bills as well.
Some of these "mini-ACA 2.0" bills only make minor improvements to the law, or make improvements in ways which are important but would take a few years to see obvious results. Others, however, make huge improvements and would be immediately obvious, and of those, the single most dramatic and important one is H.R.1868.
The official title is the "Health Care Affordability Act of 2019", but I just call both it and H.R.1884 (the "Protecting Pre-Existing Conditions and Making Health Care More Affordable Act of 2019") by the much simpler and more accurate moniker "ACA 2.0".
*(Yes, I know, the District of Columbia isn't actually a state, and Vermont's mandate is...well, read on...)
As the 2020 Open Enrollment Period rapidly approaches (it starts November 1st nationwide...except for California, where open enrollment is starting on October 15th), it's time to start getting the word out about some important things to keep in mind this fall.
One of the most critical things to remember for residents of California, the District of Columbia, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Rhode Island and Vermont is that each of these states* has reinstated an individual healthcare coverage mandate law/ordinance to replace the federal ACA mandate penalty which was zeroed out by Congressional Republicans back in December 2017. This means that if you live one one of them, unless you receive an affordability, hardship or other type of acceptable exemption, you'll be charged a financial penalty when you file your state/district taxes for 2020 in spring 2021 if you don't have qualifying healthcare coverage.
