Ohio: APPROVED 2019 #ACA rates: 6.3% INCREASE instead of ~4.9% DECREASE w/out #ACASabotage

As I noted back in June, the Ohio Insurance Dept. doesn't seem to like providing a whole lot of detail about their insurance rate filings on their website; at the time, they only stated the following regarding the preliminary 2019 individual market rate filings:

In 2018, 8 companies sold health insurance products on the exchange in Ohio and 42 counties had just one insurer with an additional 20 counties having only two.

For 2019, 10 companies have filed rates and forms for the Department to review and all 88 counties will have at least one insurer. Preliminary filings show 16 counties with just one insurer and 33 counties with two.

...Following implementation of the ACA, plan options and the premiums associated with those plans underwent significant changes. Since 2013, the Department has provided information prior to open enrollment each year as plans and premiums change. In 2018, the weighted average premium for an on-exchange individual market plan was $5,798.83 and for 2019, companies are proposing to sell products with a weighted average premium of $6,274.08. That is an increase of 8.2 percent.

Now that several states have completed their internal rate review process and posted their approved 2019 ACA rates, I double-checked the Ohio website and sure enough, here's what it says today:

Following implementation of the ACA, plan options and the premiums associated with those plans underwent significant changes.  Since 2013, the Department has provided information prior to open enrollment each year as plans and premiums change.  In 2018, the weighted average premium for an on-exchange individual market plan was $5,798.83 and for 2019 the weighted average premium is $6,161.56 - an increase of 6.3 percent.

Everything else seems to be the same (number of carriers, county coverage, etc).

As I also noted in June, the Urban Institute projected that Ohio rates would spike around 16.8% next year due to the ACA mandate being repealed and the expansion of #ShortAssPlans. As usual, I'm only assuming 2/3 of that estimate in the absence of hard numbers from the carriers or insurance dept, or roughly 11.2%.

If accurate, that means that without #ACASabotage, Ohio carriers would instead be lowering their 2019 premiums by around 4.9%

That's an average excess annual premium of around $679 per unsubsidized enrollee next year.

Here's the list of carriers for 2019:

• AultCare Insurance Company
• Buckeye Community Health Plan
• CareSource
• Community Insurance Company
• Medical Health Insuring Corp. of Ohio
• Molina Healthcare of Ohio, Inc.
• Oscar Buckeye State Insurance Corporation
• Oscar Insurance Corporation of Ohio
• Paramount Insurance Company
• Summa Insurance Company