Colorado’s individual health insurance marketplace will gain its first new option in three years in 2027, while losing another.
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Cigna Healthcare announced earlier this year that it would pull out of all states where it offered individual plans, meaning current customers will need to choose a different insurance company next year.
At the same time, Colorado Access will join the marketplace in 14 counties, including most of the 11 where Cigna sold individual plans. Colorado Access currently administers Child Health Plan Plus in 45 counties and Medicaid in four: Adams, Arapahoe, Denver and Douglas.
Colorado’s marketplace has had a bumpy year.
Higher subsidies put in place during the pandemic expired at the end of December, raising the share of their income that most customers had to put toward their monthly premiums. The state legislature partially replaced those subsidies, contributing $80 per month for people earning less than four times the poverty line, with an additional $29 for their dependents.
As of February, about 18,000 fewer people in Colorado had selected a plan and paid their premiums for the first two months, for a roughly 7% decrease, according to federal data.
Nationwide, the average decline was 12%, ranging from a more than 32% drop in Ohio and Oklahoma to a 14% increase in New Mexico, which was the only state where enrollment rose.
Annie Lee, president and CEO of Colorado Access, said the state’s efforts to stabilize the marketplace made it feasible for the insurer to join. A number of their Medicaid members will likely lose coverage next year when the One Big Beautiful Bill Act requires states to certify their eligibility twice a year instead of once, and will turn to the individual marketplace, she said.
Unlike Cigna, Colorado Access doesn’t have shareholders and isn’t trying to operate in multiple marketplaces, Lee said. The insurer also has a plan to avoid overstretching by growing too fast, she said.
“We’re a local nonprofit,” she said. “We’re different.”
Cigna said in a statement that the individual marketplace accounted for a small percentage of its business, so it made sense to close that line and focus on its core priorities.
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The last time a new carrier joined the marketplace was 2024, when Utah-based Select Health started offering plans. In the past five years, three companies left the marketplace: Friday Health, which financially imploded and closed entirely; Bright Health, which left the individual market nationwide; and Oscar Health, which still operates in 11 states.
This year, Cigna offered plans in Adams, Arapahoe, Boulder, Broomfield, Denver, Douglas, El Paso, Jefferson, Larimer, Teller and Weld counties.
Colorado Access will sell insurance in nine of those counties, with Larimer and Weld as the exceptions. It also will operate in Clear Creek, Elbert, Gilpin, Park and Pueblo counties.
The marketplace remains competitive, at least partially due to lawmakers’ decision to soften the blow of falling subsidies, said Kate Harris, chief deputy commissioner at the Colorado Division of Insurance.
“For most people, the number of plan choices is unchanged,” she said.
The Division of Insurance typically releases information about the premium rates the companies requested over the summer. Its staff then goes over the data on health care costs and utilization to determine what rates will allow the companies’ insurance plans to remain stable without overcharging. The final rates typically come in October.
An analysis of rate filings in 16 other states and the District of Columbia found insurers asked for increases averaging 14%. If approved, those increases would be the second-highest since 2018. Insurers said the primary reason they needed large increases was that the cost of care is increasing, and patients need more of it.
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