The big news on the individual market is that Aetna is seeking massive rate hikes of over 34% next year, though the weighted average across the board being requested is "only" a still ugly 13.3% increase.
On the small group market, average increases are the lower but still-not-great 8.8%. More significantly here is that Aetna and Optimum Choice are pulling out of the Delaware small group market entirely, reducing the number of carriers from six to just two, since Aetna had three divisions operating there.
Not much noteworthy here other than that Celtic is joining the Delaware individual market for the first time next year. Aetna Health seems to have added a second division in the small group market as well, but perhaps not since both the requested rate change and the current enrollment are identical to the existing Aetna Health listing, so I'm not sure what to make of that. It's a nominal number of enrollees, however, so it doesn't really move the needle anyway.
In any event, Delaware carriers are asking for an average 4.7% rate increase on the individual market and an 8.7% hike for small group plans...subject to state regulatory approval, of course.
CMS Approves Delaware Postpartum Coverage Expansion Under the American Rescue Plan
May 15: CMS marked another important maternal health milestone by approving Medicaid and Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) postpartum coverage expansion in Delaware, an opportunity made possible through the American Rescue Plan. This approval marks 33 states and the District of Columbia that have extended postpartum Medicaid/CHIP coverage to a full year. Information about Delaware’s postpartum coverage extension for Medicaid can be found here; Delaware’s postpartum coverage extension for CHIP can be found here.
Theodore Mermigos,
Acting Director Division of Medicaid and Medical Assistance
Molly Magarik, Secretary, DHSS
Delaware Health and Social Services
P.O. Box 906 New Castle, DE 19720-0906
Company Legal Name: Aetna Health, Inc.
State: DE HIOS
Issuer ID: 67190
Market: Individual
Effective Date: 01/01/2023
The development of the rates reflects the impact of the market forces and rating requirements associated with the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) and subsequent regulation. These rates are for plans issued in Delaware beginning January 1, 2023. The rates comply with all rating guidelines under federal and state regulations. The filing covers plans that will be offered on and off the public Marketplace in Delaware.
Health Insurance rate filings are available for the companies listed below. Additional companies will be listed as their filings are received. Any insurance filings already approved are available to the public through the NAIC’s System for Electronic Rate and Form Filing (SERFF) interface. There is no fee for using SERFF. Rate info can also be accessed at the Rate Review page at Healthcare.gov
Highmark DE is requesting an average plan level rate increase of 4.0% based on the projected enrollment mix by plan. The plan level rate changes will impact an estimated 26,568 current members. The rate change will vary by product ranging from a minimum of 1.7% to a maximum of 14.7%.
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.
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.
Delaware, Hawaii and Rhode Island only have 3, 6 and 5 counties respectively, so it seemed a little silly to run separate graphs for each one (I was already pushing it by giving Connecticut (8 counties) its own entry). So...I've merged all three onto one graph.
It also seemed a bit disingenous to try and come to any conclusions about a trendline with these three states in particular, so I didn't bother (not that there's much to make of that anyway...every county in these states is running between 40 - 65% vaccinated, and within 30-55% Trump support...except for tiny Kalawao, Hawaii, which only has 86 residents (none of whom appear to have been vaccinated yet, according to the CDC?), which I didn't bother listing at all.
Anyway, I'm including them mostly for completeness sake.
2020 Presidential Election results via DE, HI & RI Secretary of State's office (thru Wikipedia)
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.
The Delaware Insurance Dept. has posted the approved 2021 individual market rates and it's about as unexciting as you can imagine: There's a single carrier in the state (Highmark BCBS), which asked for a 0.5% average premium reduction and was approved for...a 1.0% average premium reduction. Unsubsidized Delaware enrollees will average around $80 in savings per year.
The Indy market is about as simple as it gets since there's only a single carrier offering ACA policies either on- or off-exchange (Highmark BCBS). They're actually cutting premiums on average slightly next year, by half a percent. They state in their summary that "Covid19 is expected to increase claim costs in 2021"...but that's all they have to say about it. The full actuarial memo includes an extensive section about the COVID-19 impact factor...but the numbers/percentages are all redacted:
