CMS approved requests from five additional states to launch reinsurance programs under Section 1332 state innovation waivers in order to help alleviate high premiums in the individual health insurance markets. Colorado, Delaware, Montana, North Dakota, and Rhode Island are embracing reinsurance as a way to help insurers cover the cost of the largest claims they face. They join Alaska, Maine, Maryland, Minnesota, New Jersey, Oregon, and Wisconsin, which have existing reinsurance programs. The positive results in these seven states are significant: a 17% drop in premiums on average in the first year of operation.

Reinsurance was a key feature of the ACA to help stabilize premiums in the individual market for 2014 – 2016, the first three years of the marketplaces. The marketplaces were new, and insurers faced much uncertainty in covering previously uninsured and under insured individuals. The ACA offered a partial safeguard against high, unpredictable medical expenses under Section 1341’s transitional reinsurance program. Estimates place the average reduction in premiums by the federal reinsurance program by as much as 14%. Based on the assumption that insurers would gain a better understanding of their members’ health status as time passed (and thus could price their products with greater accuracy), the ACA’s reinsurance program was temporary. But in 2017 premiums increased more sharply than they had in previous years, in part due to the loss of reinsurance.Continue Reading Increased State Innovation Aimed at Stabilizing ACA Marketplaces