Wisconsin

Originally posted 8/21/23; updated 11/08/23

Wisconsin has the most competitive ACA markets in the country, at least in terms of the sheer number of insurance carriers offering policies on both the individual (14) and small group (18) markets. They're losing two carriers in 2024 (WPS Health Plan in both markets and Humana in the small group market only), but it's still pretty robust.

The bad news is that it's once again extremely difficult to acquire Wisconsin's actual rate filings prior to the actual Open Enrollment Period launching, meaning I can only run unweighted average requested rate increases/decreases.

With that in mind, individual market carriers are requesting unweighted increases of around 6.8% (ranging from 1% - 15.7%), while small group carriers are seeking hikes of around 7% overall, ranging from a 25.9% reduction (wow!) to a 16.3% increase.

UPDATE 11/08/23: No changes to any of the individual market rate requests; a couple of slight changes to the small group carriers.

I'm pretty sure Wisconsin has the most competitive ACA markets in the country, at least in terms of the sheer number of insurance carriers offering policies on both the individual (15) and small group (20) markets.

The bad news is that it was extremely difficult to acquire Wisconsin's 2023 rate filings prior to the actual Open Enrollment Period launching this morning.

The good news is that when the Wisconsin Insurance Dept. finally did publish their approved 2023 rate filings, they did so in a very easy to view fashion, including all the data I need to compile the weighted average rate changes for each individual carrier.

Overall, individual market premiums for unsubsidized enrollees are going up around 7.7%, while small group market rates are increasing by an unweighted average of 8.9%.

It's worth noting that two carriers (Health Tradition and Network) appear to be dropping out of the small group market, while one of the individual market players, Children's Community Health Plan, is changing their name to...Chorus Community Health Plan for whatever reason.

Wisconsin

I'm pretty sure Wisconsin has the most competitive ACA markets in the country, at least in terms of the sheer number of insurance carriers offering policies on both the individual and small group markets. A total of 37 are present at the moment, although 5 of the small group carriers don't appear on the federal Rate Review database as of yet.

Unfortunately, this is yet another state where the enrollment data has basically been buried, so I can only run unweighted average rate changes.

With that in mind, the individual market rates look to be nearly flat (dropping by 0.8% on average), while small group plans are going up 4.4%.

Wisconsin

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 most states I've been able to get more recent enrollment data from state websites and other sources. I'm using estimates based on raw data from the Wisconsin Dept. of Health Services for January 2021 and beyond.

Wisconsin

 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.

Here's Wisconsin:

NOTE: The CDC lists ~76,000 Wisconsin residents (3.0% of the total fully vaccinated) whose county of residence is unknown.

Gold Bars

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.

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.

If you have a fairly healthy year, you really could go the entire year without paying a dime in healthcare costs while still taking advantage of many of these free services, and also having the peace of mind that in a worst-case scenario, at least you wouldn't go bankrupt. Not perfect, but a lot better than going bare especially since you wouldn't pay a dime in premiums.

I don't know if this is an industry trend, a state regulator trend or new policies being implemented by CMS, but it seems that either more health insurance carriers have been redacting their Actuarial Memos and/or not uploading their URRT files to the publicly-accessible SERFF database or the state insurance departments, SERFF database and/or CMS's Rate Review database aren't posting as many of them publicly.

Case in point, Wisconsin: I have the average requested 2021 premium rate filings for every carrier on the individual and small group markets...but the actuarial memos are all redacted and none of the URRTs are available at all, making it impossible for me to run a weighted average since I don't know how many enrollees each carrier has. Also, for the second year running, Compcare Health Services doesn't appear in CMS's Rate Review database at all for reasons unknown.

A few weeks ago, I posted a detailed analysis of how the COVID-19 virus has been spreading throughout Wisconsin. I noted that while the outbreak originally spread quickly in the more urban/blue-leaning areas, that has gradually changed over time, with the virus spreading to the rest of the state--including rural, conservative-leaning areas--at a faster rate while it slowed down in the urban areas.

It's time to check in to see whether that trend has continued...and sure enough, it has. Here's what this trend looks like visually:

For weeks now, I've been tracking the daily COVID-19 numbers at the county level in several states; particularly Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. While the pandemic hit the more densely-populated areas first (which tend to lean Democratic), the trendlines in Michigan and Wisconsin have been clearly moving towards the more rural, Republican-leaning counties increasing their share of the cases and corresponding deaths as time has passed.

Pennsylvania has been different--after a less dramatic shift from blue to red counties in late March, PA seems to have levelled off, with new cases holding pretty steady between the two.

It's been another week, so I figured I should post and update...and it's more of the same in all three cases. First up, Michigan:

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