The 2015 individual exchange plan price increases might be as much about efforts to attract healthier insureds as they are about moves to boost total premium revenue.
Kev Coleman, an analyst at HealthPocket, has published data supporting on a gap between price changes for rich coverage and bare-bones coverage in an analysis of the new 2015 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) individual exchange plan rates. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has just posted rate data for the plans to be sold by the exchanges run by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).
Analysts at Avalere Health came up with averages for the HHS-run exchanges and says the average rate for the “second lowest-priced silver plan” — a benchmark used in PPACA exchange subsidy tax credit calculations — will increase an average of 3 percent at the HHS-run exchanges, to $395. At the state-level, in the HHS exchange states, the average changes will range from a decrease of 19 percent in Mississippi, to $413, to an increase of 28 percent in Alaska, to $683.
See also: Iowa: Health claims may also be higher off-exchange
Coleman analyzed the data for all exchanges that will use the HHS exchange enrollment system in 2015.