Around the PIA Western Alliance States

Idaho — Public Meeting Website—Townhall.Idaho.Gov—Offers Enhanced Usability to DOI Stakeholders and Agents: The Idaho Department of Insurance is pleased to share exciting new enhancements to Townhall.Idaho.Gov, the state of Idaho’s new public meeting website.

Users can now subscribe to receive up-to-date notifications for all public meetings related to the Idaho Department of Insurance, as well as almost 200 other State of Idaho agencies, board, and commissions.

Other enhancements include the ability to utilize a keyword search, copy meetings to your calendar, and utilize a text reader to find valuable information in meeting documents with ease.

“We applaud Governor Little’s vision to improve transparency and access to Idaho’s government at work,” said Dean Cameron, Director of the Idaho Department of Insurance. “We hope Idahoans, and especially our friends in the insurance industry, will take advantage of the new features to understand and engage in our agency’s actions.”

Townhall.Idaho.Gov helps achieve the Governor Brad Little’s goal of making it easier for the public to understand and engage in their government by offering an online one-stop-shop for accessing public meeting information for state executive agencies.

Washington — Accessing and receiving health care services and benefits (R 2022-03) proposed rule posted: We have released the proposed rule language on R 2022-03. The rule will amend existing rules as needed to be consistent with Chapter 213, Laws of 2022, regarding audio-only telehealth.

We have scheduled a public hearing on the rule:

When:  Oct 25, 2022 at 10:30 a.m.

Where: Register for the public hearing via zoom

Comments on the proposed rule language are due October 26, 2022; please send them to rulescoordinator@oic.wa.gov.

For more information, including the proposed rule language (CR-102), please visit the rule’s webpage. 

Washington — 12 insurers approved for 2023 Exchange health insurance market, 8.18% average rate change: Twelve health insurers are approved to sell plans in Washington’s 2023 Exchange health insurance market. The average rate increase is 8.8%.  Plans from two additional health insurers (Asuris Northwest Health and Providence Health Plan) are still under review for sale outside of the Exchange.

Key drivers behind this year’s premium changes are increased utilization, including pent-up demand for elective surgeries and changes to what payments the insurers either owed or received under the Affordable Care Act’s risk adjustment program.  This program stabilizes the market by spreading the financial risk across all insurers. It requires federally collected funds be redistributed from plans with lower-risk enrollees to plans with higher-risk enrollees. Insurers must estimate these amounts when they file their requests in June and the amounts are adjusted once the final calculations are made later in the summer.