Taking Stock of Individual Market Rate Filings

Today’s the deadline for insurers to provide the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) with the preliminary list of plans they intend to offer in the Affordable Care Act (ACA) marketplaces for 2018. While insurers can (and frequently do) revise their plan offerings and premiums, CMS will soon have a preliminary snapshot of marketplace competition around the country.

And in many states, insurers have already submitted preliminary rate filings to state regulators, so there’s a lot we already know about marketplace premiums and competition for 2018. As we’ve written, it’s increasingly clear that the Trump Administration inherited a market that was poised for greater price stability and insurer competition going forward. Unfortunately, it’s also increasingly clear that Administration actions are taking a toll in both areas – especially its threats to withhold billions of dollars in payments owed to insurers and its unwillingness to commit to enforcing the ACA’s individual mandate that individuals have insurance coverage or pay a penalty.

Here are some new and updated CBPP resources that shed additional light on what’s going on in the marketplaces.

• Our guide to individual market rate filings takes a closer look at the impact of Administration efforts to sabotage the ACA, while fact sheets for selected states examine their markets.
• Recent blog posts look at the impact of sabotage on marketplace premiums and insurers’ decisions about whether to participate in the marketplaces.
• We’re tracking insurer and regulator comments about how Trump Administration actions are affecting state markets.
• Our ongoing Sabotage Watch feature tracks Administration actions that contribute to destabilizing health insurance markets or undoing the ACA’s historic gains in coverage.