Of the 31 states which have expanded Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act, only a handful issue regular monthly or weekly enrollment reports.
I noted in February that enrollment in the ACA's Medicaid expansion program had increased by around 35,000 people across just 4 states (LA, MI, MN & PA).
It's early June now, so I checked in once more, and the numbers have continued to grow. I have the direct links for 5 states now (including New Hampshire)...
Over the past few months, my Congressional District Breakdown tables estimating how many people would likely lose healthcare coverage if the ACA were to be "cleanly" repealed (with no replacement) have gotten a lot of attention. This was followed by the Center for American Progress (CAP) running their own estimates of how many would likely lose coverage if, instead of a "clean" repeal of the ACA as a whole, the ACA were to be partially left in place, with the GOP's AHCA (Trumpcare) bill, which dramatically changes the ACA, being signed into law instead.
In Montana, assuming 59,000 people enroll in private exchange policies by the end of January, I estimate around 39,000 of them would be forced off of their private policy upon an immediate-effect full ACA repeal, plus another 61,000 enrolled in the ACA Medicaid expansion program, for a total of 101,000 Montana residents kicked to the curb.
As for the individual market, my standard methodology applies:
Normally I post screenshots from the revised/updated SERFF filings and/or updates at RateReview.HealthCare.Gov, but it takes forever and I think I've more than established my credibility on this sort of thing, so forgive me for not doing so here. Besides, #OE4 is approaching so rapidly now that this entire project will become moot soon enough, as people start actually shopping around and finding out just what their premium changes will be for 2017.
The other reason I'm not too concerned about documenting the latest batch of updates/additional data is because in the end none of it is making much of a difference to the larger national average anyway; no matter how the individual carrier rates jump around in various states, the overall, national weighted average still seems to hover right around the 25% level.
Still, for the record, here's the latest...in four states (Iowa, Indiana, Maine & Tennessee) I've just updated the requested and/or approved average increases. In the other four (Massachusetts, Montana, North & South Dakota) I've added the approved rate hikes as well.
Lindeen Finds Blue Cross Rate Increases Unreasonable
HELENA – Montana Commissioner of Securities and Insurance Monica Lindeen announced today that following an extensive rate review process, her office has found the rates filed for health insurance in the individual and small-group marketplaces by Health Care Services Corp. (doing business as Blue Cross Blue Shield of Montana) to be unreasonable. This is the first time that such a finding has been issued.
Montana's entire individual market was around 70,000 people back in 2014, and has likely grown to around 87,000 today, so it looks like pretty much everyone is accounted for above (the remaining 9,000 or so are presumably enrolled in grandfathered policies; Montana is among the few red states which didn't allow transitional plans).
As for the actual requested rate hikes...ouch. BCBS is seeking a whopping 62% average increase, and since they own 70% of the individual market, that means a statewide weighted average of right around 50% even. Things aren't as ugly on the small group market, but that 27.5% average is still pretty ugly.
Regular readers may have noticed that I've been posting fairly lightly of late. Now that open enrollment is over and we're deep in the thick of primary season, I'm trying to catch up with the massive backlog which has built up in my day job.
However, there's still a lot of stuff going on; today, for instance, brought some very positive Medicaid expansion news out of two states:
The New Hampshire House on Wednesday approved legislation that would keep 48,000 people on their insurance plans by continuing the state's expanded Medicaid program beyond the end of the year.
The bill, which now goes to the Senate, includes work requirements for recipients and asks insurance companies and hospitals to cover the state's share of the program's costs.
Until this year, most of the ACA exchanges, including HealthCare.Gov, would simply report how many people selected QHPs through the exchange, whether paid up or not. There's nothing wrong with this as long as it's made clear at some point how many people actually paid their premiums and had their policies effectuated; the argument over this issue was the entire basis of the infamous "But how many have PAID???" fuss back in 2014. It was such a Big Deal that the Republicans on the House Energy & Commerce Committee even published the results on a laughably garbage-filled "survey" they had sent out to a portion of the insurance carriers.
Long-time readers may have noticed that unlike private QHP enrollment, I've sort of given up on trying to track Medicaid expansion numbers at the state-level on the Medicaid Spreadsheet this year. Quite frankly, there's simply too much missing data and way too much "churn" in Medicaid for me to keep track of it at that granular level. Instead, I've just been looking at the Medicaid numbers from the national level, guided by CMS's monthly reports...but I've proven to be pretty accurate with my proejctions on those trends so far, so I'm not too concerned about it.
Starting Friday, low-income Montanans covered by Montana’s expanded Medicaid program can start using their coverage – and 20,000 people have already signed up.
I know you're not supposed to repost entire articles, but this one is about as short & to the point as it gets. Go visit the Billings Gazette:
HELENA — Montana officials say about 5,500 people have signed up for Medicaid in the first week of expanded eligibility to the working poor.
Department of Health and Human Services Director Richard Opper announced the results of the initial wave of enrollments during a cabinet meeting Tuesday.
An estimated 70,000 people are eligible now that Medicaid has been expanded to people who earn up to 138 percent of the federal poverty level — $33,000 for a family of four.
That's about 8% of Montana's potential Medicaid expansion population in the first week. Not bad!
