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.
Anyway, there's nothing terribly noteworthy in the 2025 filings. Insurance carriers are seeking an average 4.2% rate hike on the individual market and 9.6% for small group plans.
HMO Partners (Health Advantage) appears to be dropping out of the small group market, but otherwise it looks pretty calm.
Back in November, I noted that Georgia, one of the ten states STILL refusing to expand Medicaid coverage to hundreds of thousands of low-income residents a decade after they could have done so under the ACA, may finally be coming around...albeit via a rather silly & inefficient method. via the Atlanta Journal-Constitution:
Could Georgia adopt an Arkansas-style Medicaid plan?
Senior Republicans see an opening for a health care overhaul
Key Republicans say they’re open to legislation that would add hundreds of thousands of poor Georgians to the state’s Medicaid rolls — and bring in billions of federal dollars to subsidize it — as part of a compromise to roll back hospital regulations.
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.
Anyway, there's nothing terribly noteworthy in the 2024 filings. Insurance carriers sought an average 5.0% rate hike on the individual market and 5.5% for small group plans; these were shaved down slightly by state regulators for overall weighted average increases of 4.1% and 5.4% respectively.
USAble HMO is launching a new line of HMO insurance products in the state next year (called "Octave" I believe) but otherwise it looks pretty calm.
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.
Anyway, there's nothing terribly noteworthy in the 2024 filings, in which AR carriers are seeking an average 5.0% rate hike on the individual market and 5.5% for small group plans. USAble HMO is launching a new line of HMO insurance products in the state next year (called "Octave" I believe) but otherwise it looks pretty calm.
During the COVID pandemic emergency, Congress passed legislation which, among other things, required states to provide "continuous coverage" of people who enrolled in Medicaid or the CHIP program.
Normally Medicaid/CHIP enrollees have their eligibility statuses "redetermined" every month (or quarter in some states, I believe) to make sure they were still eligible for the program, but the Families First Coronavirus Response Act (FFCRA) stated that in order to receive increased federal funding of their Medicaid/CHIP programs, states couldn't kick anyone off as long as the public health emergency was in place (unless they died, moved out of state or asked to be disenrolled).
This requirement ended effective April 1st, 2023 via an omnibus bill passed back in December.
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.
Insurance companies offering individual and small group health insurance plans are required to file proposed rates with the Arkansas Insurance Department for review and approval before plans can be sold to consumers.
The Department reviews rates to ensure that the plans are priced appropriately. Under Arkansas Law (Ark. Code Ann. § 23-79-110), the Commissioner shall disapprove a rate filing if he/she finds that the rate is not actuarially sound, is excessive, is inadequate, or is unfairly discriminatory.
The Department relies on outside actuarial analysis by a member of the American Academy of Actuaries to help determine whether a rate filing is sound.
Below, you can review information on the proposed rate filings for Plan Year 2022 individual and small group products that comply with the reforms of the Affordable Care Act.
Now that I've developed a standardized format/layout & methodology for tracking both state- and county-level COVID vaccination levels by partisan lean (which can also be easily applied to other variables like education level, median income, population density, ethnicity, etc), I've started moving beyond my home state of Michigan.
As I noted recently, I've relaunched my project from last fall to track Medicaid enrollment (both standard and expansion alike) on a monthly basis for every state dating back to the ACA being signed into law.
