August 2, 2018
Short Term Plans
The Big news of the week was the release of the short term duration rule. Wakely will be releasing a deeper dive into the rule but a few key take-aways:
- Short-term duration plans will be allowed to exist for less than 12 months and renewed for up to 36 months
- The rule would not prevent carriers from stringing together separate short term policies to the same consumer in excess of 36 months
- The rule is effective in 60 days
- States are free to adopt a definition with shorter maximum initial contract term or renewal period
- OACT estimates that individual market premiums will in the individual market will be higher 1% and 5% in 2019 and 2021, respectively, as a result of the rule.
Part D Premiums
- For the second year in a row, the average basic premium for a Medicare Part D plan is projected to decline from $33.59 to $32.50 next year. You can access the data and more here. CMS expects to release the premium and cost data for Medicare health and drug plans for 2019 in mid to late September.
Individual Market Data
- Kaiser Family Foundation released new data on the size of the 2018 individual market. They estimate enrollment declined 12% year over year and the individual market for the first quarter of 2018 is 14.4 million.
- They did note that issuers appear to be on track for a profitable 2018.
- Matt Fiedler, of the Brookings Institute, researched how premiums would have looked in a stable policy environment. His findings: in a stable policy environment, premiums likely would have decreased 4%. Premiums appear to be on track for about a 6.6% increase.