The fourth open enrollment of the Affordable Care Act is right around the corner and some major changes are headed this way. We have premium increases and specific companies exiting the markets to look forward to.
Let’s start with the individual markets. UnitedHealthcare and Humana will no longer offer any individual plans for 2017. A large chunk of you are enrolled in these plans are will now have to seek out other options. Anthem will no longer offer its PPO for the individual market and Rocky Mountain Health is completely pulling out of the mountains and only offering individual plans in Mesa County.
So those of you in the mountains now only have one on-exchange company to get your individual plans through and that is Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield. Keep in mind only the HMO division is available now for individuals.
Now let’s take a peek at some of the individual rate increases:
(These are not the final increases. The numbers are only what the carries have requested)
Anthem BCBS (HMO Colorado) 26.8%
Bright Health Plans*** New to market
Cigna 9.5%
Colorado Choice 36.33%
Denver Health 0.08%
Freedom Life Insurance 9.98%
Golden Rule 40.6%
Kaiser Foundation Health Plan of Colorado 13.6%
National Foundation Life 9.98%
Rocky Mountain HMO 34.6%
Moving on to the Group markets. As you can see many of the major carries are making moves to the small group markets. The increases per company are minimal compared to the increases purposed to the individual markets. Let’s take a look at these increases:
(These are not the final increases. The numbers are only what the carries have requested)
Aetna Health Inc. -4.4%
Aetna Life Insurance Company -3.6%
Anthem BCBS (HMO Colorado) 4.1%
Anthem BCBS (Rocky Mountain Hospital & Medical Service) 2.9%
Colorado Choice 7.38%
Humana Health Plan Inc. 6.35%
Humana Insurance Company 4.36%
Kaiser Foundation Health Plan of Colorado 3.7%
Kaiser Permanente Insurance -0.9%
Rocky Mountain Healthcare Options 11.2%
Rocky Mountain HMO 5.1%
UnitedHealthcare Insurance Company -7.7%
UnitedHealthcare of Colorado -1.6%
It looks like at this point in time that the individual market is in turmoil while the group market seems to be more stable with smaller increases. If you have been thinking about group insurance now is the time to at least get some competitive quotes.
