MVP Health Care is pulling out of the New Hampshire health insurance market in an effort to better concentrate its resources in Vermont and New York, the company says.
Of the roughly 600,000 people MVP covers, only 1 percent of them live in New Hampshire. The 40,000 Vermonters that MVP insures account for almost 7 percent of the company’s business, and the remaining 92 percent of its coverage falls within New York’s boundaries.
“There is a number that says this is not feasible or sustainable in the long run, but the other component is what’s the opportunity,” MVP Vice President Bill Little said. “We have been investing in New Hampshire for a long time, and our sense is the number is too low to continue.”
Little says that Vermont’s new health insurance market, Vermont Health Connect, presents new market opportunities. Therefore, he says, it is too difficult for his team to determine the minimum number of Vermont subscribers to make viable the company’s business here over the next year or two.
New York-based MVP is one of two insurers selling plans on the new market. Blue Cross Blue Shield of Vermont, which is headquartered in Berlin, is the other. Both insurers are each offering nine plans on the exchange.
The roughly 100,000 Vermonters buying health insurance independently or through small businesses with 50 or fewer employees must buy coverage on the state’s new Web-based marketplace in 2014. Since Blue Cross controls about 75 percent of this combined market, and the current plans expire at the end of the year, the exchange opens a window for MVP to gain a greater share of the market.
Right now, however, MVP has no idea how the market is shaping up.
“We’ve heard there are a bunch of folks who have enrolled, but we don’t know who they have enrolled with,” he said. “We’re as anxious as anybody to find out who has enrolled.”
Susan Gretkowski, an MVP lobbyist, said the Department of Vermont Health Access would not release the numbers to the insurer.
“The way DVHA set it up is they aren’t going to send us any enrollment information until people are billed and paid in full,” she said. “Since they aren’t going to begin billing until Nov. 1, we’re not going to see anything until sometime after that. We’ve asked DVHA to let us know as people are enrolling before they pay, but they have so far not agreed to do that.”
Gretkowski and Little said New York’s market has experienced similar technological glitches to those of Vermont. But there is a major difference between Vermont’s market policies and New York’s.
“The New York exchange is voluntary,” Little said. “They are not moving the entire individual and small group market into their exchange. There is still a marketplace outside of the exchange in New York.”
