The Individual & Small Group Markets Committee sent a comment letter to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) on the Proposed Rule: Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act; Marketplace Integrity and Affordability.
( )The Health Practice Council (HPC) released a summary of findings from a new Society of Actuaries (SOA) Research Institute report, The ACA @ 15 – Tracking Prior and Emerging Results since its Inception, that discusses the policy implications of those findings.
( )Vice presidents of the Academy’s Casualty Practice Council, Health Practice Council, Life Practice Council, and Risk Management and Financial Reporting Council provided comments to the NAIC’s newly established Risk-Based Capital (RBC) Model Governance (EX) Task Force on the task force’s 2025 goals and proposed charges.
( )An issue brief from the Individual and Small Group Markets Committee, Ensuring Access, Affordability, Choice, and Competition in the Individual Health Insurance Market, provides an overview of how the laws and rules governing the individual health insurance market support the goals of increasing access to coverage, improving affordability, enhancing consumer choice, and encouraging insurer competition. It also discusses how changes to these laws and rules could affect the achievement of these goals.
( )A Medicaid Committee issue brief, Medicaid Per Capita Caps: Design Considerations and Policy Implications, focuses on Medicaid per-capita caps and discusses some of the key design considerations and the potential implications of different design decisions. In particular, it discusses considerations related to setting the initial federal per-capita cap and how that would change over time.
( )A new issue brief from the Academy’s Long-Term Care Committee, The State of Long-Term Care Insurance—2025, highlights the current state of LTCI, focusing specifically on policy design, the management of legacy blocks of business, and policyholder engagement. It also considers potential areas for continued uncertainty in the industry.
( )The Long-Term Care (LTC) Committee submitted comments to the NAIC’s Long-Term Care (B) Task Force (LTCAWG) in response to the NAIC Long-Term Care Insurance (B) Task Force’s November 20, 2024, request for comments on the exposure draft of the Long-Term Care Insurance Multistate Rate Review (LTCI MSA) Framework.
( )Senior Health Policy Analyst Matthew Williams provided an update on the Health Practice Council (HPC) activities of interest to the NAIC’s Health Actuarial (B) Task Force (HATF) at their recent meeting in Denver, including an update on recent and upcoming HPC publications, other Academy activity and key 2025 events.
( )The Health Practice Council’s Individual and Small Group Markets Committee submitted comments to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services regarding the proposed rule for the 2026 Notice of Benefit and Payment Parameters.
( )The Health Practice Council has released an issue brief, ERISA at 50: ERISA and Health Benefits. The issue brief covers the history of ERISA’s application to health benefits, subsequent amendments to the law, ERISA’s facilitation of coverage under employer-sponsored health plans, and its challenges. Released alongside the issue brief is an executive summary of the brief.
( )The Long-Term Care (LTC) Committee submitted comments to the NAIC’s Long-Term Care Actuarial (B) Working Group (LTCAWG) in response to LTCAWG's August 12, 2024, request for comments on Proposals A and B as candidates for a Single LTCI Multistate Rate Review Approach.
( )Annette James, co-chairperson of the Health Equity Committee (HEC), provided updates on recent HEC activities to the National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) Special (EX) Executive Committee on Race and Insurance. Topics included using cost-effectiveness as a metric for evaluating new benefits as opposed to using only cost. Behavioral health is also a major focus of the HEC this year to develop a framework that actuaries could use to incorporate other factors into the evaluation of health benefits.
( )Academy Senior Health Fellow Cori Uccello presented on the “Drivers of 2025 federal Affordable Care Act (ACA) Health Insurance Premium Changes” to the National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) Health Actuarial (B) Task Force during its 2024 Summer National Meeting. The presentation also highlighted the recently released associated issue brief and infographic.
( )Academy Senior Health Policy Analyst Matthew Williams provided an update on the Health Practice Council (HPC) activities of interest to the National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) Health Actuarial (B) Task Force during its 2024 Summer National Meeting. Topics included key policy priorities and project updates for the HPC, annual Hill and agency visits, as well as current workstreams with the NAIC Health Risk-Based Capital (E) Working Group on tiered risk-based capital factor development.
( )Released alongside the annual issue brief, The Individual and Small Group Markets Committee released an infographic, "Drivers of 2025 Health Insurance Premium Changes—Effects on Premiums". The infographic breaks down, in easy-to-understand language, the factors that may drive health insurance premium changes for the 2025 plan year.
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