Covered California Announces 2023 Plan Rates: Lower Than National Average Amid Uncertain Future of American Rescue Plan Benefits
California’s individual market will see a preliminary rate increase of 6 percent in 2023, due in part to the return of normal medical trends that existed prior to the COVID-19 pandemic and the uncertain future of the American Rescue Plan.
Despite the uncertainty, the rate change is below the national average thanks to Covered California’s 1.7 million enrollees and the state’s healthy consumer pool, which remains among the best in the nation.
Covered California also announced that a 13th carrier would join the marketplace, and an existing carrier would expand to become the second one to offer statewide coverage.
All Californians will have two or more choice of carriers, 93 percent will be able to choose from three or more, and 81 percent will have four or more choices.
Reinsurance continues to save Coloradans money on health care, while the Colorado Option Plan is included for the first time.
DENVER - The Colorado Division of Insurance (DOI), part of the Department of Regulatory Agencies (DORA), has released preliminary information about the health insurance plans and premiums for 2023 -- for the individual market (meaning health insurance plans for people who don’t get their insurance from an employer) and the small group market (for small businesses with 2-100 employees).
The initial review by the DOI of the insurance companies’ filings for 2023, indicate that the overall average consumer impact on premiums in the individual market will be an 11.3% increase over 2022 premiums. These are the health insurance plans available to individuals on Connect for Health Colorado, the state’s health exchange made possible by the Affordable Care Act (ACA).
Tennessee has posted their preliminary 2023 individual & small group market health insurance rate filings. For the most part they're fairly straightforward: The individual market is looking at average rate increases of around 9%, assuming they're approved as is by state regulators, while the small group market averages around +2.9% overall.
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.
Anthem, ConnectiCare Benefits Inc. (CBI) have filed rates for both individual and small group plans that will be marketed through Access Health CT, the state-sponsored health insurance exchange. ConnectiCare Insurance Company, Inc. has filed rates for the individual market on the exchange.
Harvard Pilgrim Health Care and HPHC have decided to leave the CT market and will no longer offer new business small group health plans. They will only renew existing plans through the end of their appropriate plan years.
The 2023 rate proposals for the individual and small group market are on average higher than last year:
I'm about 1/3(update: make that 2/3) of the way through my Annual Individual & Small Group Market Rate Filing project, having analyzed & crunched the numbers for 18 36 states + DC. This seems like a good time to step back and see where things stand.
So far, I've compiled the preliminary unsubsidized average premium rate filings for both the ACA-compliant individual and small group markes in Akransas, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, DC, Georgia, Hawaii, Indiana, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Vermont and Washington State. It's important to remember that these are preliminary filings only--many of the carriers will have their final 2023 rate changes reduced, although in most cases they tend to be approved as is, and in some cases they're even increased beyond what the carrier originally requested.
It's also important to note that these 18 states + DC only represent around 30% of the total U.S. population...aside from New York, the other big states (California, Florida, Texas, Pennsylvania, etc.) haven't posted their 2023 filings yet.
Georgia's health department doesn't publish their annual rate filings publicly, but they don't hide them either; I was able to acquire pretty much everything via a simple FOIA request which was responded to within an hour of my asking.
There's one significant development apiece in Georgia's individual & small group markets:
INDIVIDUAL: A few years ago, Georgia's GOP Governor, Brian Kemp, put in a request to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) for what's known as a Section 1332 State Innovation Waiver. If approved, these waivers allow individual states to modify how the ACA operates in their state as long as they can prove that the changes would a) cover at least as many residents b) at least as comprehensively without c) increasing federal spending in the process.
Arkansas is a problematic state for many reasons, but I have to give their insurance dept. website high praise for posting their annual rate filings in a clear, simple & comprehensive fashion (which is to say, not only do they post the avg. premium changes for each carrier, they also post the number of covered lives for each, which is often difficult for me to dig up). Better yet, they also include direct links to the filing summaries and include the SERFF tracking number for each in case I need to look up more detailed info.
Hawaii only has two health insurance carriers serving the individual market, Hawaii Medical Service Assocation and Kaiser Foundation Health Plan. Both of them have submitted their proposed premium rate filings for 2023, and unlike most states so far this year, their initial requests are quite reasonable: Just a 2% average hike apiece.
Unfortunately, things are much spottier for Hawaii's small group market: I can only find the rate change & current enrollment filings for one of the 5 carriers offering small business plans, at 5.7%. This doesn't mean much without the data from the other carriers, however:
UPDATE 10/19/22: Both of Hawaii's individual market carrier filings have been approved as is, so that's a 2% average rate increase. On the small group market there's still some missing data but I was able to fill in some fields for both the preliminary and final rate filings:
