NOTE: This was originally posted over at Daily Kos. I've since ported it over here for archival purposes.
Yesterday was, as predicted, rather chaotic on the ACASignups.net front. This morning, the fun continues with a few more last-minute updates. Also, I made my "final" predictions late last night...which I'm now scrapping in favor of a different type of "final" prediction (see below for more on this).
Enrollments in private health plans on Healthplanfinder, the state’s online insurance marketplace, surged past 65,000 as applicants hustled to beat the Monday night deadline for coverage beginning Jan. 1, Washington Health Benefit Exchange officials reported Tuesday.
Then it was "OK, the site is loading but no one can create an account!"
Then "OK, you can create an account but no one can view the plans!"
Then "OK, you can view the plans but no one can fill out their application!"
Then "OK, you can apply but no one can actually enroll!"
Then "OK, it works now, but no one bothering to do so anymore!"
Then "OK, (a lot of) people are enrolling, but none of the data is being transferred to the insurance companies!"
And now that we've hit over 1.8 million private enrollments, the new attack is:
"FINE, a lot of people have ENROLLED, but how many have actually *PAID*???"
Here's a simple 2 part response:
1. Actually, Washington State DOES break enrollments out between "enrolled but not paid" and "enrolled and paid". In their case, about 48% of their 134,000 private plan enrollees have fully paid. Assuming this is a typical spread across the other states, it should be roughly 875,000 enrollees who have paid already.
Good evening! If you started an application December 23, but haven't completed it, you now have until Friday, December 27 at 8pm to finish for coverage starting on January 1. However, you cannot complete your application online as part of this extension. Instead, please call our service center at 1-800-300-1506, or work with a Certified Enrollment Counselor or Agent - you can find one at this link. Happy Holidays, and get covered!
I also wanted to go on the record with my prediction for the final private enrollment tally projection for the "real" 1/1/14 coverage deadline of midnight tonight: 1.95 - 2.0 million.
NOTE: This was originally posted over at Daily Kos. I've since ported it over here for archival purposes.
A few more minor updates today, but honestly, with the deadline having passed in a few states, extended to tonight in most, and extended until through Friday in still others, it's gonna be chaotic to keep up for a few days.
HOWEVER, here's where things stand as of 11:30am, 12/24/13 (thanks to ArcticStones for the Vermont & Colorado updates):
--CALIFORNIA: They hit 30,000 private enrollments yesterday, up from 15K/day 2 weeks ago to 20K/day last week. I currently have them at around 450,000 total, which coincides with their "over 400K" tweet from 24 hours ago (ie, there's been a good 30-60K more since then).
Enrollments in private health plans on Healthplanfinder, the state’s online insurance marketplace, surged past 65,000 as applicants hustled to beat the Monday night deadline for coverage beginning Jan. 1, Washington Health Benefit Exchange officials reported Tuesday. Nearly 69,000 others have completed the enrollment process, but haven’t arranged payment, and another group of undetermined size has begun applications that are in varying stages of completion. ... As of Monday at midnight, about 100,800 people newly eligible for health insurance through the state’s expanded Medicaid program had signed up. Almost half of those were transferring from the now-discontinued Basic Health program or were presumed qualified for a federal assistance program for the disabled. An additional 47,500 enrollments were from those who previously qualified for Medicaid under the old rules — primarily children — but had not been signed up. And more than 88,000 people already covered by Medicaid renewed their eligibility.
For private enrollments, Washington is the only state that distinguishes between "enrolled but not paid yet" and "enrolled and first month's premium paid"; every other state, and the HHS, counts you as being enrolled even if you haven't actually paid yet, so that's the criteria I use, although I did separate out the other 69K on the spreadsheet. For Medicaid, I'm not counting the 88K since they were just renewals, but the 47.5K do count since they appear to fall into the category of people who were already qualified but didn't know about it until the ACA and the state exchange. In addition, as in several other states, another 47,000 people are being automatically transferred over to Medicaid proper from an existing state program; this is one of the "orange cells" on the spreadsheet. Also, h/t to sulthernao, who found the actual WA exchange source that gives the precise numbers.
NOTE: This was originally posted over at Daily Kos. I've since ported it over here for archival purposes.
OK, after my victory lap the other day upon confirmation that ACASignups.net had nailed the actual current number of private Obamacare exchange enrollments with 99% accuracy, it was pointed out to me by ericlewis0 that even including the Medicare/SCHIP expansion enrollments, the actual total number of people who now have healthcare coverage (or are about to as of 10 days from now) who previously didn't is actually more than 8 Million.
That is to say, I completely forgot the 3.1 million (as of June 2012...it was 2.5 million a year earlier, so I'm sure it's even higher today) young adults under 26 years old who now have coverage through their parents policies who otherwise wouldn't have, thanks to the Affordable Care Act.
If you add these 3.1 million to the 1.4 million private enrollments and the 3.9 million Medicaid/SCHIP expansion enrollments, that actually comes to around 8.4 million.
More than one million Americans signed up for health insurance under the Affordable Care Act during the first three weeks of December, including 500,000 through the federal exchange, President Barack Obama announced Friday.
Official enrollments 10/1 - 11/30: 364,682
"Over 1 Million" 12/01 - 12/20: at least 1,000,001
Total: 1,364,683
ACASignups.net as of this morning: 1,349,562
Damn, we're good.
Thanks to ArcticStones, ybruti, MotherShipper, shiska64, rugbymom, timmyc, CJB, rsmpdx, dadadata, Rolyboy6 and everyone else who has been helping me with this project.
Meanwhile, check out the news on Medicaid (which has been spottier/harder to come by, even though the numbers are already higher):
If November had an Obamacare surge, consider this the December deluge. California averaged 15,000 daily enrollments early last week, about double the sign-ups the state had in early December. New York is now seeing about 4,500 residents choosing plans each day and, in Connecticut, the number is hovering around 1,400.
That bumped the number of private plan enrollments up to 815,000.
