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Sent: Thursday, June 03, 2010 2:00 PM
Subject: [Comments] Today's NAIC Teleconference - Will Individual Policy MLR Thresholds need to be
lowered?
The NAIC conducted a two hour teleconference meeting today. The subject seems to have
been prompted by health insurers by bringing up the point that they are seriously considering
market exits in the individual line of business and by law, they must provide the policyholder
with a six month termination notice. The primary issue is that imposing an 80% MLR on 1/1/11
will primarily impact business that was written prior to 2011 with a lower MLR target. This
could quickly create a non‐viable position for several large companies. We think companies
such as Aetna, Assurant, Mega Life, United Health – to name a few ‐‐ are likely to consider
exiting specific states unless the 2011 MLR targets are lowered. We note that out of roughly 10
million people with individual health policies, that the 39 Blues have about 42% and Wellpoint
has 22%, for a Blue market share total of 64%. This suggests to us that at least 1 to 2 million
individual policyholders could be at risk of being “orphaned.”
The NAIC is moving quickly to quell the obvious fall out of having policy cancelation letters
going out soon and having the potential of millions of “orphaned” individual policyholders.
Several approaches were considered, and the outcome is not yet “official”, but the NAIC is now
headed down the path of suggesting to HHS the need for lower MLR transition targets by
state for the 2011 – 2013 period. We note that at 3:00 today, the NAIC has a conference call
with HHS, and on Monday, there will be another teleconference at 3:00 eastern time. The NAIC
is obviously choosing to go down the more political route of requesting that HHS modify the
individual MLR under the authority granted to the HHS secretary in the health reform bill. The
bill gives HHS the authority to lower the MLR threshold for a given state if the original 80%
threshold is deemed to be “disruptive” to the market. The NAIC is going to try to make that
case for market disruption rather than wait for a bad outcome. A case could be made that the
Obama administration will cynically refuse the request and then try to blame the inevitable
backlash on the insurance companies. We are of the view that it will be very difficult for the
Obama administration to deflect the blame as these market exits are clearly in reaction to
ObamaCare. The democrats do not need more bad publicity on health reform ahead of the
November elections, so we think that HHS will allow some modification of the MLR
thresholds to avoid bad press. We note that even the department of Managed Care in CA
made a plea to the NAIC to pursue lower MLR thresholds, noting that the current state average
is closer to 70%. We also note that the modifications to the MLR methodology are likely to
have the least impact on the individual line of business due to less profit, hence less income
taxes, and also, less expense on quality initiatives compared to large groups.
Below is a list of potential solutions considered by NAIC for this issue, with the lower MLR
transition thresholds by state ending up the preferred route.
• Move to One National MLR Threshold by Year: Most of the insurance commissioners
were not in favor of this suggestion as they want to have some control over the
outcome. In any case, ou ur read is thaat HHS can mmake an exception to the MLR thresshold
sttate by statee, so asking ffor one MLR R threshold for all states seems less llikely to be
approved.
• W
Wait for an “ “Evidence B Based” Outco ome Before Making a D Decision: A ffew consumeer
advocates maade this casee, but the co ommissionerrs rallied agaainst it statin
ng that acting
affter millionss of letters go
oing out ann nouncing policy cancelattions is avoid ding the NAIIC’s
obvious respo onsibility to manage thee outcome.
• B
Blend the Iss sue of Policyy Duration w with Potential Market Exits: The isssue of allowiing
caase reservess to be set att the ultimatte MLR pricing target wo ould help thee MLR issue
soomewhat, but at the end d of the dayy, it is a wholle separate issue that wiill have to bee
dealt with.
• R
Re‐contract Distribution n Costs: While lowering distribution n costs will bbe an importtant
developmentt for the insu urance indusstry, it is dub
bious to count on this foor a quick fix to
he MLR prob
th blem.
• R
Rely on Risk Pools to Proovide Coverrage for Orphaned Policcyholders: TThere are a
m
myriad of pro oblems with this proposaal that rangee from not eenough money earmarkeed
fo
or the propo osed new pools, to waiting lists, to h higher policy prices and n not being abble to
acccept workin ng or healthy people.
unstein
Seth Brau
281 Tresser Boulevard
Stamford Plaza 2, Suite
e 1510
Stamford,, CT 06901
Phone: (8
860) 676‐7339 9 Fax: (203) 359‐8962
seth@dow wling.com wwww.dowlingg.com
IM = Seth Braunstein