Connect for Health CEO exaggerates a decrease from filed rates for 2018 individual plans

Below is an email from Connect for Health Colorado CEO Kevin Patterson. I would link to it if I could but that doesn’t appear possible. He makes claims that only a politician could stay with a straight face. Specifically I’m speaking about the claims of rate reductions from filed rates. The specific sentence is bolded in the letter and excerpted below:

The rates in the individual market increased 27 percent on average and 7 percent for the small group market. Both represent reductions from requested rates, according to the DOI announcement.

You can view the DOI rate announcement here. Specifically, for the individual market:

Filed increase: 26.96%, Approved 26.7%

That is a decrease of a in total magnitude of 0.19% Put in another form, the DOI reduced the rate increase by 0.96% between filed and approved rates. To call this a reduction of  requested rate increases is obviously apparently factually true, but only a politician would try to paint such a minuscule change as something of note.

Additionally, how did they make the calculations? If you split business equally between insurance companies, there is actually a rate increase between filed and approved, whether you look at all carriers or simply those offered through Connect for Health. Note, this rate increase between filed and approved rates is TRIVIAL, which I have no problem admitting. If plans were weighted based on 2017 enrollment, by what science can they use that weighting for 2018?

In both cases, the difference between filed and approved is so small as to make it a non event. Yet, Mr. Patterson feels it’s important enough in his email to state (excuse me while I repeat myself):

Both represent reductions from requested rates, according to the DOI announcement.

And as a good politician, he leaves himself an out by using the phrase “according to the DOI announcement.” Common sense show the difference between filed and approved is essentially zero, but why miss the opportunity to state there was an actual reduction, no matter how meaningless.

Only politicians do that, and it’s important to understand that Connect for Health Colorado is first a political animal and then a place to get your health insurance.

To Our Valued Stakeholders, We have a long way to go and a few short weeks to get there but the two days of hearings before the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions committee this week featured members of both parties sharing ideas on bolstering the individual health insurance market. In fact, support for Congress continuing Cost Share Reductions came from members of both parties. Reinsurance, which would give health insurance companies a backstop for covering their most expensive members, is also getting support, according to the Washington Post. This week’s hearings kindled hope of bipartisan action on broader policy initiatives, according to Morning Consult.

Kevin Patterson, CEO

Kevin Kevin Patterson, MURP, MPA Chief Executive Officer Connect for Health Colorado