Open enrollment period

During the open enrollment period that ended on Jan. 15 in most states, 16,306,448 people selected an Affordable Care Act marketplace plan, the Biden administration said on Jan. 25. That total represents a 13% increase compared to the same time last year, and accounts for plan selections through Jan. 15 on the 33 states using HealthCare.gov and through Jan. 14 or 15 on the 18 state-based marketplaces. While record-breaking for the exchanges, the signup total for 2023 is not final, as open enrollment continued through Jan. 23 for Massachusetts Health Connector and through Jan. 31 for DC Health Link, Covered California, Get Covered New Jersey, New York State of Health and Health Source Rhode Island. Still, the Biden administration hailed the new enrollment figures, with CMS Administrator Chiquita Brooks-LaSure stating: “On the tenth anniversary of the ACA Marketplaces, the numbers speak for themselves: more people signed up for plans this year than ever before, and the uninsured rate is at an all-time low.”

Nearly 11.5 million people selected or were automatically reenrolled in health plans for 2023 on HealthCare.gov as of Dec. 15, 2022, an 18% increase over the same time period in 2021, according to CMS. Although the average premium for benchmark silver plans (before accounting for tax credits) increased by 4.1% in 2023 after four years of declines, enrollees receiving subsidies may find their net premiums for low-cost bronze, silver and gold plans are lower than last year, according to a Kaiser Family Foundation analysis.

In a move made at a critical juncture in the annual Affordable Care Act open enrollment period, Oscar Health, Inc. recently said it will “temporarily stop accepting new members in the state of Florida.”

Industry observers tell AIS Health, a division of MMIT, that the decision is clearly linked to fellow startup Bright Health Group, Inc.’s exit from all 15 states in which it was set to sell plans next year. But they’re divided on what the implications are for Oscar’s viability as a business.

In a Dec. 12 press release, Oscar — which was founded in 2012 and went public in 2021 — said that it “proactively engaged regulators [in Florida], as a result of the changing market dynamics following market exits by certain carriers, regarding options to manage its membership growth.”

Nearly 5.5 million people have selected health plans since the Affordable Care Act open enrollment period began on Nov. 1, CMS said in its latest marketplace enrollment update. That total captures signups on HealthCare.gov through Dec. 3 and through Nov. 26 for the state-based marketplaces, and it represents an 18% increase compared to the same time period last year. So far 22% of total plan selections have been from individuals who are new to the marketplaces, while 78% are returning customers, CMS said. The open enrollment period lasts through Jan. 15 for HealthCare.gov states and most state-based marketplaces.

Blue Shield of California — which lost its bid to continue to serve California’s Medicaid managed care program — plans to lay off 373 employees by Jan. 25, Modern Healthcare reported. The decision from California’s Dept. of Health Care Services came in August after the state held its first competitive bidding process for Medi-Cal contracts. Blue Shield was not chosen — prompting the insurer to later sue the state — while Elevance Health’s Anthem Blue Cross Partnership Plan, Centene Corp.’s Health Net and Molina Health Care were selected to participate in varying service areas across 21 counties. The layoffs represent a small portion of Blue Shield’s total workforce of 7,800, Modern Healthcare noted, and the cuts are mostly concentrated at the insurer’s Sacramento-area offices.

The U.S. Dept. of Justice, Minnesota and New York have filed an appeal in their antitrust case against UnitedHealth Group’s now-completed acquisition of Change Healthcare, Inc. The DOJ and state attorneys general filed their notice of appeal on Nov. 18, roughly two months after Judge Carl Nichols of the U.S. District Court of the District of Columbia dismissed their case against the $13 billion transaction. Regulators had argued that the deal would give UnitedHealth’s OptumInsight division too much power over health care data, but Nichols ruled that Change’s planned divestiture of its claims-editing technology, ClaimsXten, would assuage any anticompetitive concerns. UnitedHealth has now officially closed its deal with Change, and press reports indicate that the firm TPG Capital has finalized its acquisition of ClaimsXten.

Workers employed by the federal contractor Maximus — which handles calls about Medicare and Affordable Care Act plans — went on strike in four states on Nov. 1. The employees based in Louisiana, Mississippi, Kentucky and Virginia want to be paid $25 per hour and have more breaks between calls, of which they field 15 to 20 daily lasting about 30 minutes each, NPR reported. Although the workers are not unionized, they had been organizing for months. In a statement to NPR, Maximus said it “welcomes the opportunity to work directly with our employees and discuss and hopefully resolve their concerns,” adding that it does not anticipate any service disruptions as a result of the strike. The Annual Election Period for Medicare Advantage plans began on Oct. 15 and the ACA open enrollment period started Nov. 1.

Open enrollment for 2023 Affordable Care Act exchange plans starts on November 1, with the Biden administration hoping to continue the enrollment growth seen over the past few years. As of early 2022, about 16.9 million people were enrolled in the individual market, a 20% increase from early 2020, according to a recent Kaiser Family Foundation analysis.

The growth is largely driven by enhanced subsidies enacted by American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) and extended through 2025 by the Inflation Reduction Act. Overall, about 75% of individual market enrollees are now subsidized. The study estimated that about 3 million people will buy unsubsidized coverage off- marketplace during 2023 open enrollment, a decrease compared to prior years.

When the 2023 open enrollment period for Affordable Care Act exchange plans officially begins on Nov. 1, health insurers will be offering plans in a market full of contrasts: where, for example, rising premiums are masked by enhanced subsidies, and where health plan competition is at its highest level but there’s fewer new-to-the market insurers than there were in 2022.

New regulatory changes are also taking effect in the 2023 plan year. Most notably, insurers will have to offer standardized plans alongside their other products for the first time since the Obama administration, and CMS will be evaluating plans for quantitative network adequacy standards.

Galvanized by a growing, stable Affordable Care Act exchange market and a looming dropoff in Medicaid membership, some of the country’s largest health insurers in 2023 are once again expanding their ACA marketplace footprints. At the same time, two startup insurers are pulling out of select markets — although one policy expert tells AIS Health that those moves mainly reflect how difficult it is to compete against companies with dominant market shares.

Katherine Hempstead, senior policy adviser at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, says significant enrollment growth in Southern states appears to be driving some insurers’ expansion moves this year.

Cigna Corp. will expand its Affordable Care Act exchange offerings in 2023 by 50 new counties in Georgia, Mississippi and North Carolina and add three new states — Texas, Indiana and South Carolina — the insurer said in August. If approved by the state regulators, Cigna’s market expansion has the potential to reach roughly 730,000 additional enrollees. The carrier has been expanding its footprint over the past few years, currently ranking 11th in national ACA enrollment with 340,000 members. Its major state markets are Tennessee (85,000 members), Virginia (62,000) and Missouri (49,000).