BILLINGS — Montana has the nation’s second highest rate of people re-enrolling in the health exchanges established under the federal health care law.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services released updated enrollment statistics for the 34 states using the federally run marketplace in 2015. Those numbers show that 59 percent of the 54,266 Montana residents who signed up for health insurance plans re-enrolled, meaning they signed up again after enrolling last year.
“I was struck by how there was good representation of folks buying in Healthcare.gov (the marketplace website) all over the state,” said Jennifer McKee, communications director for Montana Commissioner of Securities and Insurance Monica Lindeen, whose office watches over the insurance industry in the state.
In 2014, 36,600 Montanans signed up for insurance through the marketplace, which acts as an online kiosk for shopping for individual health policies and offers federal subsidies for those eligible under the federal Affordable Care Act.
New Hampshire had the highest percentage, with 60 percent of its 53,005 residents having signed up again after enrolling in 2014. Louisiana and South Carolina were lowest with 42 percent each.
Federal officials said that 85 percent of Montanans who signed up on the marketplace in 2015 get financial help to cover the costs, with an average monthly premium reduction of 66 percent after receiving a federal tax credit. Enrolled Montanans pay an average monthly premium of $116, down from $346 before the credit.
That credit has helped to ensure Montana’s signup numbers stay strong, McKee told The Billings Gazette (http://bit.ly/1LZGzO6).
“If people weren’t getting a tax credit, they might not be able to afford insurance,” she said. “That was the point of the (ACA) legislation in large measure. Health insurance was unaffordable for a lot of people.”
Having four companies — Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Montana, PacificSource, the Montana Health Co-op and Assurant — selling policies on Montana’s marketplace could also help.
“We’ve got good competition in our market,” McKee said. “Our rates in 2015 didn’t really go up that much.”
However, Assurant has started to notify its more than 7,000 Montana customers that it plans to pull out of the national marketplace and that their policies will not be renewed after Dec. 31, according to Lindeen’s office.
And the insurance companies in Montana have also reported large losses on individual marketplace policies and recently asked for double-digit rate hikes.
Lindeen must first approve those increase requests, which remain under review.
The number and percentage of signups by county varied wildly across Montana.
Yellowstone County, the most populous in the state, saw 5,510 residents sign up through the marketplace, representing about 3.5 percent of the county’s total population.
Three other counties in Montana saw more total signups than Yellowstone. In Gallatin County, which saw the most total, 7,826 people (about 8.2 percent of the population there) signed up. Missoula County saw 7,716 signups (6.9 percent) while Flathead County reported 6,371 (6.8 percent).
Butte-Silver Bow and Lewis and Clark counties each saw 4.2 to 4.3 percent of their populations sign up while 8.76 percent of Park County residents enrolled this year.