ACA Sabotage

Welp. There you have it. Via Jonathan Oosting of the Detroit News:

Snyder signs 80-hour Medicaid work requirement law

Most adult Medicaid recipients who receive health care insurance through the state’s Healthy Michigan plan will be required to work at least 80 hours per month or risk losing coverage under a new law signed Friday by Republican Gov. Rick Snyder.

Five years after he led the push to expand Medicaid eligibility under the federal Affordable Care Act, Snyder signed the new work requirements over protests from Democrats and advocacy groups who decried it as a legislative effort to strip health insurance from low-income residents.

...“The original estimates were that 400,000 people without health care would be able to obtain it after the creation of Healthy Michigan, and today more than 670,000 people have coverage. I am committed to ensuring the program stays in place and that Michiganders continue to live healthier lives because of it.”

Thanks to Maanasa Kona of the Center on Health Insurance Reforms at Georgetown for the heads up:

For the first time since 2014, the # enrolled in individual health plans in the first quarter of the calendar year in NJ went down from the previous year. Commissioner Caride blames the current administration's actions. https://t.co/xuuGLQV7BE pic.twitter.com/rGNpfx2IYS

— Maanasa Kona (@MaanasaKona) June 22, 2018

Here's the press release and table:

Health Insurance Enrollment in NJ Individual Market Down 10 Percent in First Quarter of 2018

Reduced Enrollment Demonstrates Importance of Policies Aimed at Stabilizing the Market, Increasing Access to Affordable and Quality Coverage

The Indiana Insurance Dept. has released the preliminary rate requests for 2019 insurance policies on the ACA individual and small group markets.

Like last year, there's only three carriers participating in Indiana's individual market: CareSource and Celtic (aka Ambetter) will again be available both on and off the ACA exchange, while Anthem will only be offering a single Catastrophic plan on the off-exchange market in just five counties:

The overall average rate increase for 2019 Indiana individual marketplace plans is 5.1%. CareSource and Celtic (MHS/Ambetter) have filed to participate in the 2019 Indiana Individual Marketplace. The Department of Insurance anticipates that all 92 counties in Indiana will be covered by one or more insurance company. CareSource plans to cover 79 counties. Celtic (MHS/Ambetter) plans to increase its coverage from 43 counties in 2018 to all 92 counties in 2019.

Anthem has filed to offer a 2019 Off-Marketplace plan in Indiana. This plan is a catastrophic plan and is offered only in Benton, Jasper, Newton, Warren and White Counties.

Last year, Iowa's already-ugly individual market was rocked further yet by Big Kahuna Wellmark announcing that after finally entering the ACA exchange market in 2017, they were dropping back out again this year, leaving Medica as the only carrier offering ACA-compliant policies throughout the whole state. In response, Medica raised their 2018 ACA rates by a whopping 57% this year. This, in turn, led to the state legislature passing a law which stripped away pretty much any type of restriction or regulation of "Farm Bureau" plans, exacerbating the risk pool problem further yet.

UPDATED 6/22/18: Added Indiana and Iowa to the table.
UPDATED 6/25/18: Added Florida, Kentucky, Ohio and Texas* to the table
*(Texas only has about 1/3 of the total ACA individual market accounted for, so it could easily change)
UPDATED 7/3/18: Added Montana and Georgia to the table
UPDATED 7/13/18: Added Tennessee, updated Texas to add BCBSTX
UPDATED 7/16/18: Added Colorado
UPDATED 7/17/18: Added Nevada
UPDATED 7/19/18: Added California
UPDATED 7/20/18: Added Connecticut

Well this is a nice surprise! Yesterday the Minnesota ACA exchange, MNsure, issued a press release a day ahead of the public posting of requested 2019 individual market insurance rate changes, advising people of the various ways they have to keep their premiums down via ACA tax credits, shopping around and so forth. I was immediately concerned that they might know something I didn't...perhaps they were expecting a batch of double-digit rate hikes as has happened in so many other states the past few years?

Well, today the Minnesota Commerce Dept. did release the preliminary 2019 rate requests, and I'm pleasantly surprised to report that for the second year in a row, Minnesota carriers are actually asking for rate decreases:

NOTE: I originally missed two carriers (McLaren and Molina); thanks to Louise Norris for calling attention to my error. The entire post, along with the table, has been updated to reflect the updated numbers including all 11 carriers.

Also note that while the headline originally reflected what the average rate change would be without the CSR load sabotage factor introduced in 2017, I've decided to be consistent with other states and only include 2018 sabotage impact.

My home state of Michigan just posted their preliminary requested rate changes for the 2019 Open Enrollment Period, and unlike most of the other states which have released their early requests so far, Michigan is a pleasant surprise: An overall average requested premium increase of just 1.7%!

Also noteworthy: According to the filings, eight of the carriers are specifically projecting exactly a 5% mandate repeal factor, which is remarkably consistent (usually the projections are all over the place). HAP is slightly lower (4.4%) while Molina is higher (7.2%). Priority Health didn't mention this at all, but it's safe to assume it'd be roughly 5% for them as well.

So, I just received the following press release from MNsure (Minnesota's ACA exchange)...

Tax Credits Through MNsure Can Help Lower Proposed Premiums for 2019
June 14, 2018

DULUTH, Minn.—Preliminary health insurance rates proposed by Minnesota health insurance companies will be available on the Minnesota Department of Commerce website on Friday, June 15.

Private insurance companies set premium prices, and the Minnesota Department of Commerce regulates those companies. Final, approved 2019 premium rates will be available by October 2, and the 2019 open enrollment period begins on November 1. Minnesotans shopping for health insurance through the individual market may be able to reduce premium costs in three ways:

1. See if you are eligible for tax credits only available through MNsure

Well this is rather unexpected.

Let's fire up the Wayback Machine, Sherman, and go back to 3 years ago, when the Risk Corridor Massacre first reared its ugly head.

The simplest explanation of how Risk Corridors worked is this:

• The ACA made dramatic changes to how the individual insurance policy market worked.
• Since it was so disruptive, it included several provisions to help stabilize the market.
• One of these programs, called "Risk Corridors", was a temporary (3 year) program which acted as sort of an insurance policy for insurance carriers.
• In a nutshell: Carriers which earned excessive profits on ACA policies had to place a chunk of those profits into a pool of money. Carriers which took excessive losses on ACA policies were supposed to be reimbursed for a chunk of those losses.
• If the profits exceeded the losses, the government got to keep the difference, so it was theoretically possible they'd actually profit off the system.
• If, however, the losses exceeded the profits, the government was supposed to pay out the difference.

(As an aside: For those claiming "government bailout! picking winners and losers!" etc etc, the ACA's risk corridor program is actually very similar in many ways to the permanent Medicare Part D risk corridor program, although there are some key differences between the two).

Rick Scott is the Republican Governor of Florida, coming up on the end of his 2nd term in office.

Rick Scott is also running to become the next U.S. Senator from Florida, against incumbent Democrat Bill Nelson.

Prior to being elected Governor of Florida, Rick Scott was the CEO of Columbia/HCA, aka Hospital Corporation of America.

Under Rick Scott's leadership, Columbia/HCA was behind the largest Medicare fraud in history at the time:

Scott started what was first Columbia in 1987, purchasing two El Paso, Texas, hospitals. Over the next decade he would add hundreds of hospitals, surgery centers and home health locations. In 1994, Scott’s Columbia purchased Tennessee-headquartered HCA and its 100 hospitals, and merged the companies.