There's still millions of ballots left to count, and no doubt some legal battles gearing up, but as of 11:00am on November 4th, the most likely scenario going into 2021 will be:
Joe Biden will be sworn in as the 46th President of the United States.
Democrats will continue to control the U.S. House of Representatives, albeit with a smaller margin than they have today.
Republicans will continue to control the U.S. Senate, albeit with a smaller margin than today (either 52-48 or possilbly 51-49 depending on an upcoming runoff election in Georgia).
The Texas Fold'em lawsuit (official name: CA v. TX, formerly TX v. Azar) is scheduled to be heard by the U.S. Supreme Court (6-3 conservative) just 6 days from today, on November 10th.
Keep in mind, however, that while the hearing will happen next week, their actual decision isn't expected to be announced until next spring...most likely between April and June.
I'm about to leave to start my shift as a poll worker in this, the most important U.S. election of our lives. I've been told I might be working until as late as midnight or even later, and will likely be sequestered all day, so I won't be able to update this site or social media.
The data below comes from the GitHub data repositories of Johns Hopkins University, except for Utah, which come from the GitHub data of the New York Times due to JHU not breaking the state out by county but by "region" for some reason.
Note that a few weeks ago I finally went through and separated out swing districts. I'm defining these as any county which where the difference between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton was less than 6 percentage points either way in 2016. There's a total of 198 Swing Counties using this criteria (out of over 3,200 total), containing around 38.5 million Americans out of over 330 million nationally, or roughly 11.6% of the U.S. population.
With these updates in mind, here's the top 100 counties ranked by per capita COVID-19 cases as of Saturday, October 31st (click image for high-res version). Blue = Hillary Clinton won by more than 6 points; Orange = Donald Trump won by more than 6 points; Yellow = Swing District
There's a lot on everyone's plate at the moment. A global pandemic which has already killed over 230,000 Americans and infected 9 million more. The entire West Coast is on fire while the Gulf Coast is being hit with hurricanes. And there's some sort of election coming up on Tuesday, I hear.
Meanwhile, in just eleven days the Republican-controlled Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in a case brought by Republican plaintiffs (and sided with by a Republican Justice Department) over whether the Affordable Care Act should be struck down en masse because a Republican-controlled House and Republican-controlled Senate decided to change the individual mandate penalty amount from $695 to $0.
However, there's one other important thing happening with the ACA in just two days: The 2021 ACA Open Enrollment Period begins on Sunday, November 1st.
As I do every year, here's a list of important things to remember when selecting a health insurance policy. Some of these are the same every year and apply nationwide; others are specific to the 2021 enrollment period and/or to particular states.
Information About Approved Rates for January 2021 Health Plan Offerings on DC Health Link
Open Enrollment for Plan Year 2021 DC Health Link’s open enrollment begins November 1, 2020 through January 31, 2021. DC Health Link is an online marketplace created for individuals, families, and small business owners in the District of Columbia to shop, compare, and select health insurance that meets their health needs and budgets. For more information, visit dchealthlink.com or call (855) 532-5465.
This page contains approved health plan rate information for the District of Columbia’s health insurance marketplace, DC Health Link, for plan year 2021.
My 2021 Rate Change project still isn't complete yet for two reasons: First, I only have the final/approved 2021 rate filings for 28 states as of today (vs. preliminary rates for all 50 states + DC). Second, a higher-than-usual number of carriers have made it impossible (or at least highly difficult) to dig up their effectuated enrollment data for 2020.
Without that number, I have no way of running weighted averages for that state's individual market; those are listed in grey below. In a few cases (like Florida), the state insurance dept. actually provided the weighted average but I still had to guess at the total enrollment number (also in grey).
This is a bigger problem than you might think. Let's say a state has 3 carriers requesting a 5% rate reduction, a 2% increase and a 15% increase. The unweighted average would be +4%....but if it turns out that the first carrier holds 90% of the market share this year, the weighted average would be more like -4%. You see the problem here.
Five weeks ago, right after Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg passed away, I once again wrote about the different options available to Democrats to save the ACA from a potentially disastrous SCOTUS ruling next spring...each of which would require them holding a trifecta in the House, the Senate and of course the Presidency:
1. Pass a simple bill changing the federal mandate penalty to an amount higher than $0.00.
2. Pass a simple bill clarifying that the mandate is separate from the rest of the ACA.
3. Pass a simple bill striking out the underlying mandate language itself.
As I understand it, two of these would also require the newly-Dem controlled Senate to also kill the filibuster (or to somehow convince enough Republicans to agree to hit the 60-vote threshold), while the third (raising the penalty back over $0.00) could be done with just 50 votes (+ VP Kamala Harris as the tiebreaker) via the reconciliation process...which itself gets messy.
Q: "IF the Affordable Care Act is overturned, how will you ensure that Colordans who have healthcare through the Affordable Care Act's Medicaid expansion will continue to be covered?"
New Mexico Superintendent of Insurance Announces Premium Decreases for 2021
Santa Fe, NM –New Mexico Superintendent of Insurance Russell Toal announced today that health insurance premiums will decrease significantly for individuals and families purchasing their own coverage through beWellnm (New Mexico’s Health Insurance Exchange). Average plan prices dropped in the Bronze, Silver, and Gold plan categories across the state. Silver plans, the most common plan purchased on the individual Exchange, will decrease between 8.1 and 13.5 percent on average. Small businesses will experience a 6.7 percent average premium decrease on beWellnm.
The Office of Superintendent of Insurance (OSI) reviews health insurance filings annually to determine whether rates are reasonable and fair.
“After a rigorous review of health insurance filings, our office is pleased to report that premiums are going down in 2021,” said Superintendent Toal. “Not only are rates decreasing, but New Mexico will have more health plans competing in the marketplace than ever before”
