DOI Completes Review of Individual and Small-Group Health Insurance Rate Filings
The Kentucky Department of Insurance (DOI) announced today that it has completed its review of the individual and small-group insurance rates filed in the Kentucky market. The rates will be used to calculate insurance premiums in the 2019 benefit year.
Kentuckians in the individual market will once again experience changes in premiums and plan offerings. The rates that will be used reflect an average rate increase of 4.3 percent for Anthem Health Plans of Kentucky (Anthem) and 19.4 percent for CareSource. Since the actual premium charged will vary by individual and the plan level selected, some individuals may see a decrease in rates.
Kentucky's 2019 preliminary Rate Filings have been posted, and they're pretty straightforward: Like this year, there will only be two carriers offering policies on the KY individual market in 2019: Anthem and CareSource, with roughly a 46/54 market share split.
The overall average requested rate increase is around 12.2% between the two. Neither carrier states just how much of their requested increase is due to mandate repeal or #ShortAssPlans (CareSource did list it...but then redacted it from public view). The Urban Institute projected around an 18.7 percentage point impact; 2/3 of that is around 12.5 points, so that's what I'm assuming until further notice.
Assuming that's accurate, that means that if not for the mandate/shortassplan sabotage factors, Kentucky carriers would be keeping unsubsidized 2019 premiums flat year over year (or even dropping them a smidge).
A week or so ago, I noted that Republicans in my home state of Michigan have come up with a clever way of having their (chocolate) cake and eating the (vanilla) cake too. As first noted by Nancy Kaffer of the Detroit Free Press:
Although HB 897 threatens to end Medicaid benefits for hundreds of thousands living elsewhere in the state, it includes exemptions for people who live in counties with an unemployment rate of more than 8.5%, like the ones Schmidt represents.
Live in Detroit? You're out of luck.
The city's unemployment rate is higher than 8.5%, but the unemployment rate in surrounding Wayne County is just 5.5% — meaning Detroiters living in poverty, with a dysfunctional transit system that makes it harder to reach good-paying jobs, won't qualify for that exemption. The same is true in Flint and the state's other struggling cities.
This morning I was contacted on Twitter by a woman in Louisville, Kentucky who appears to be in pretty dire straits:
On 7/1/18, in Ky, my Medicaid/ ACA will be canceled. I may still need a brain shunt, LP #8, RXs, PT, etc. I was informed that my PCP could write a letter stating I was "Medically Fragile" but even then the provider has final say. Like fox guarding hen house. Please help me/DM
I am a disabled attorney living with my 76-year-old mother who takes care of me. In 2011, I was bitten by a tick and was infected with Ehrlichiosis Chaffeensis and Rickettsia. A week later, I contracted Coxsackie B4 virus. Because I was kept on antibiotics for 19 years, I had no immune system to fight these illnesses.
From the Cabinet Meeting scene in the comedy "Dave":
DAVE: Now the Commerce Department..,
SECRETARY OF COMMERCE (sitting erect): Yes, Mr. President?
DAVE (from a card): You're spending forty-seven million dollars on an ad campaign to... (reading) 'Boost consumer confidence in the American auto industry.'
SECRETARY OF COMMERCE: Um...yes, sir...it's designed to bolster individual confidence in a previous domestic automotive purchase.
DAVE: So we're spending forty-seven million dollars so someone can feel better about a car they've already bought?
SECRETARY OF COMMERCE: Yes, sir, but I wouldn't characterize it that way...
DAVE (indignant): Well I'm sure that's really important, but I don't want to tell some eight- year-old kid he's got to sleep in the street because we want people to feel better about their cars. (beat) Do you want to tell him that?
SECRETARY OF COMMERCE (quietly): No sir...(looks at TV cameras)...no sir, I sure don't.
Gov. Matt Bevin has issued an executive order that would strip Medicaid coverage from nearly half a million Kentuckians should his proposed overhaul of the federal-state health plan be struck down in court.
No one has filed a legal challenge to Bevin's changes to Kentucky's Medicaid program that federal authorities approved Friday.
But several advocacy groups have said some of the changes — such as requiring some "able-bodied" adults to work or volunteer at least 20 hours a week — likely will be challenged in court because they violate federal law that establishes Medicaid purely as a health program and does not authorize work requirements.
*UPDATE: Some have accused me of hyperbole in the headline because a) it's a "state-approved health or financial literacy" course, not a "can you read" test and b) because it would only be required if they're unable to meet the requirements in other ways. I guess I can see their point, but it strikes me as splitting hairs:
First, "literacy course" was their wording, not mine (I guess there's a distinction between "completeing a course" and "passing a test"?).
Second, there doesn't appear to be any real description of the "courses" in question--how long it is, what the criteria for measuring "completion" is, who would be conducting the course, whether you'd have to attend classes in person (vs doing so online?), how many sessions there'd be and so forth. Here's the description as laid out in the waiver request itself:
When I ran the requested rate hike numbers for Kentucky in early August, it looked like the only 2 carriers participating in the individual market next year (CareSource and Anthem BCBS) were asking for pretty hefty hikes of around 30.8% on average...and that assumed CSR reimbursement payments would be made next year. If they aren't, based on the Kaiser Family Foundation's estimates, I tacked on an additional 13.8% for a requested average of 44.3%. Ouch.
