2017 Health Insurance Rate Requests

[reubenray]

Rubenray, you can look up the rate requests here https://ratereview.healthcare.gov. Looks like BCBS intends to continue selling individual policies, and they will be pricier.

Wow - BSBSAL asked for a 41.53% rate increase for the plan my wife has now. It definitely looks like she will have to go to a Bronze plan.

 

[explanade]

On the CNN post-debate coverage, they had a fact-check section about the statements made during the debate.

One was about skyrocketing ACA premiums.

But CNN cited a KFF report that the average increase in premiums nationwide was 9%.

Kind of surprising it isn't higher, with all these anecdotes about rate requests in different states.

 

[RockyMtn]

2nd full year on my megacorp retiree health and the increase is 26% over last year!

 

[travelover]

.........Kind of surprising it isn't higher, with all these anecdotes about rate requests in different states.

That is the difference between anecdotes and data.

 

[ivinsfan]

On the CNN post-debate coverage, they had a fact-check section about the statements made during the debate.

One was about skyrocketing ACA premiums.

But CNN cited a KFF report that the average increase in premiums nationwide was 9%.

Kind of surprising it isn't higher, with all these anecdotes about rate requests in different states.

I'd like to fact check that fact check.....

 

[SecondCor521]

On the CNN post-debate coverage, they had a fact-check section about the statements made during the debate.

One was about skyrocketing ACA premiums.

But CNN cited a KFF report that the average increase in premiums nationwide was 9%.

Kind of surprising it isn't higher, with all these anecdotes about rate requests in different states.

I am not sure, but I believe that the skyrocketing premiums are the sticker prices, and the KFF number is the increase in what Americans will pay after accounting for the ACA subsidies.

In my particular case, I believe most of the Idaho insurers have asked for an increase in the 25-40% range, but when I go on the ACA website my net premium has only gone up about 5%. The subsidies are noticeably higher.

That's OK, the government has plenty of extra money.

ETA: After reviewing the ACA rate review site above, it appears that my plan premiums are going up about 32-33% (sticker price) and the majority of the increase is due to two factors: (1) loss of risk corridor payments, and (2) underestimation by the insurance company of overall costs - i.e., the pool is sicker than they thought. Can't really argue with the reasoning. Hopefully it is a one year thing.

 

[wmc1000]

According to KFF the 9% increase is the change in cost for the second lowest Silver plan. From yr to yr the 2nd lowest plan cost depends on what companies are still providing ACA plans and is most likely not the same provider from one year to the next. Other companies above the 2nd lowest may have larger increases approved and therefore the overall premium increase average may be much more substantial.

 

[explanade]

Part of the problem is that the ACA is suppose to reimburse some insurance carriers for losses but the Obama administration has been blocked from doing so:

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/15/us/health-care-insurance-exchange-obamacare.html

Moreover, as the article details, some people are getting very expensive treatments and then dropping insurance so carriers are complaining about insureds not even paying a full year of premiums.

Is that some loophole that the penalty isn't applied or at least a prorated penalty?

Otherwise, free riding is too easy, though as detailed in the article, some people can't even make very modest premium payments each month.

 

[pb4uski]

I believe that the penalty is pro-rated if you do not have insurance for the whole year.

 

[MichaelB]

How is that going to work in an orderly manner when 100K people need insurance plans to replace BCBS leaving the market? What if they all cap at 10K, how are the other 50K supposed to get insurance?

BSBS left 100K+ without insurance and some of the 7 or so plans are strictly metro HMO's so this could be a real disaster in the making.

Here we have more details on how this will be implemented, courtesy Health Affairs Blog Capping Enrollment To Save Minnesota’s Individual Market According to this article, the Blue Plus option is an HMO. The article includes a table with target enrollment numbers for each insurer. This will be difficult for Mn residents that require a broad, national network.

The agreement reached included caps on health plan enrollment and significant rate increases between 50-66.8 percent. Only one of the five plans, BCBS’s narrow-network HMO plan, Blue Plus, agreed to offer plans without an enrollment cap.

 

[REWahoo]

Don't know if this has already been posted:

ACA Individual Rate Hike Requests By State

The accompanying article notes that some states have actually granted hikes larger than the insurance company requested...

Regulators approve higher health premiums to strengthen Obamacare insurers

 

[ivinsfan]

y fo

Here we have more details on how this will be implemented, courtesy Health Affairs Blog Capping Enrollment To Save Minnesota’s Individual Market According to this article, the Blue Plus option is an HMO. The article includes a table with target enrollment numbers for each insurer. This will be difficult for Mn residents that require a broad, national network.

Been doing quite a bit of reading on this as we were going to try and drop our company provided BCBS PPO and try to go to the exchange.
After looking thru the cap numbers its my opinion the idea is to take the 120K that got dumped from BCBS PPO plans and Healthpartners and basically force them to the BCBS HMO plans which will not have caps.

In our rural county we have Medica who will really be taking very few new policies and a BCBS network which offers almost no specialists and use of a hospital in a town of about 15K people..that's it.

As far as Medica they issued a new enrollment policy saying EVERY new policy must go thru MnSure and they will not work with brokers. There is no oversight over how Medica will accept new people,they only need to fill their cap and I wouldn't be a bit surprised to find out that the IT department has figured out some way to screen people (probably by age) to help the bottom line. These caps are nothing but a gentlemen's agreement between the companies and the insurance commissioner. For example Healthpartners sent out notices dropping over 10K customers on Oct 1. dropped all rural areas from coverage and most smaller metro areas. they will cover 11 counties. On the same day they dropped their enrollment cap number by 10K.Not a peep from the insurance commissioner when this happend only 30 days from open enrollment. The insurance companies are in the drivers seat in this state.

We'll be staying with our group PPO while we try to figure out what the H@#l is going on.