Protect Our Care is a healthcare advocacy coalition created last December to help fight back against the GOP's attempts to repeal, sabotage and otherwise undermine the Affordable Care Act. This morning they released a report which compiled the approved 2018 individual market rate increases across over two dozen states.
Needless to say, they found that the vast majority of the state insurance regulators and/or carriers themselves are pinning a large chunk (and in some cases, nearly all) of the rate hikes for next year specifically on Trump administration sabotage efforts...primarily uncertainty over CSR payment reimbursements and, to a lesser extent, uncertainty over enforcement of the individual mandate penalty.
Protect Our Care is a healthcare advocacy coalition created last December to help fight back against the GOP's attempts to repeal, sabotage and otherwise undermine the Affordable Care Act. This morning they released a report which compiled the approved 2018 individual market rate increases across over two dozen states.
Needless to say, they found that the vast majority of the state insurance regulators and/or carriers themselves are pinning a large chunk (and in some cases, nearly all) of the rate hikes for next year specifically on Trump administration sabotage efforts...primarily uncertainty over CSR payment reimbursements and, to a lesser extent, uncertainty over enforcement of the individual mandate penalty.
Protect Our Care is a healthcare advocacy coalition created last December to help fight back against the GOP's attempts to repeal, sabotage and otherwise undermine the Affordable Care Act. This morning they released a report which compiled the approved 2018 individual market rate increases across over two dozen states.
Needless to say, they found that the vast majority of the state insurance regulators and/or carriers themselves are pinning a large chunk (and in some cases, nearly all) of the rate hikes for next year specifically on Trump administration sabotage efforts...primarily uncertainty over CSR payment reimbursements and, to a lesser extent, uncertainty over enforcement of the individual mandate penalty.
Protect Our Care is a healthcare advocacy coalition created last December to help fight back against the GOP's attempts to repeal, sabotage and otherwise undermine the Affordable Care Act. This morning they released a report which compiled the approved 2018 individual market rate increases across over two dozen states.
Needless to say, they found that the vast majority of the state insurance regulators and/or carriers themselves are pinning a large chunk (and in some cases, nearly all) of the rate hikes for next year specifically on Trump administration sabotage efforts...primarily uncertainty over CSR payment reimbursements and, to a lesser extent, uncertainty over enforcement of the individual mandate penalty.
Protect Our Care is a healthcare advocacy coalition created last December to help fight back against the GOP's attempts to repeal, sabotage and otherwise undermine the Affordable Care Act. This morning they released a report which compiled the approved 2018 individual market rate increases across over two dozen states.
Needless to say, they found that the vast majority of the state insurance regulators and/or carriers themselves are pinning a large chunk (and in some cases, nearly all) of the rate hikes for next year specifically on Trump administration sabotage efforts...primarily uncertainty over CSR payment reimbursements and, to a lesser extent, uncertainty over enforcement of the individual mandate penalty.
Here's something refreshing: U.S. Senator Angus King (I-ME) giving a floor speech in which he lays out at least a half a dozen different types of deliberate sabotage of the ACA's upcoming 2018 Open Enrollment Period by the Trump Administration to date. Start at 4:30:
On Senate Floor, King Discusses “Sabotage” of the Affordable Care Act
“Why does anyone want to have fewer people with insurance?”
WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senator Angus King (I-Maine) today spoke on the floor of the U.S. Senate to address threats to the Affordable Care Act’s healthcare marketplace.
“I’m rising today in sadness, but also in some anger because there’s a lot of talk about the Affordable Care Act collapsing,” said Senator King in his speech. “Mr. President, it is not collapsing – it’s being mugged. It’s being stabbed in the back. It’s being sabotaged, deliberately and consciously by the actions of the Administration. And I want to emphasize – this isn’t about ideology, it’s not about politics… this is about people.
Back in July, I had originally estimated the requested rate increases for New Mexico to average roughly 24.2% with partial Trump Administration sabotage or 37.2% with full sabotage (no CSR payments, full mandate enforcement threat). However, figuring out NM's approved rate hikes is proving to be frustrating.
On the one hand, they have a handy database lookup tool right there on the NM Insurance Dept. website, and they even have the actual premium amount listings for every plan from every carrier in every rating area available. Unfortunately, the premium listings don't give a year over year comparison (or an average percent increase), and the database tool seems not to have been fully updated as of this writing, making it kind of useless. I have some info for a couple of the individual carriers but even that's a bit confusing.
To the best of my knowledge, there are only 2 insurance carriers offering ACA-compliant insurance policies in Arizona next year: Blue Cross Blue Shield of AZ and Centene (branded as HealthNet).
Back in early August, BCBSAZ announced that they were asking for a relatively modest 7.2% rate increase next year in the 13 counties (out of 15 total) where they were offering individual plans. They also explicitly stated that if it weren't for their concerns over whether or not the Trump Administration would guarantee reimbursing their CSR expenses, they'd be keeping the 2018 rates flat year over year. Granted, this is after a massive rate increase for 2017, but it was still welcome news, and once again underscored how much damage the Trump sabotage factor is.
In a year when every state's 2018 Open Enrollment situation is messy to say the least, Minnesota's is far more so:
Last year they were facing massive rate hikes, especially for unsubsidized enrollees (yeah, I know, I know, don't say it), and came very close to having all of their carriers bail
In response, they agreed to let most of them put a maximum enrollment cap on a First Come First Serve, with Blue Plus (BCBSMN) agreeing to take the "overflow".
However, the unsubsidized individual market enrollees were royally screwed, so the state legislature and governor slapped together a special, one-time 25% premium rebate specifically for them. The money came directly out of other portions of the state general fund, I believe. MNsure, the state exchange, also added an extra 8-day special enrollment period for these folks to jump in and get in on the rebate.
This got them over the 2017 hump, but clearly it was a sloppy, stopgap measure only, so earlier this year Minnesota decided to take advantage of the ACA's 1332 Waiver provision, which allows states to make significant changes to how they implement the ACA as long as the changes can be proven to provide at least as many people with similarly comprehensive coverage without increasing the federal deficit in the process...a provision which (former) HHS Secretary Tom Price encouraged states to do.
As for CSR payments not being made, however, the press release accompanying the rate tables was more vague; it stated that they would be "up to" 14 points higher, but didn't clarify whether that would apply to every individual plan or only the Silver policies, which is how most other states appear to be handling it. I assumed the "no-CSR" average would be roughly 32.9% if the load is only dumped on Silver plans, but 40.7% if spread across all metal levels.
