New York: Latest official numbers correct prior estimates on Pvt. & Medicaid/CHIP

Last week I took an uncharacteristic gamble by not trusting my instincts about the off-hand "7,000/day in January" comment made by the Deputy Director of NY State of Health; her claim seemed quite a bit off-base compared with the official press release a few days earlier, but I decided that she must know the numbers better than I did, so I went with it.

Today, the newest official numbers were released, and as it happens, I should have trusted my instincts--while the totals are still impressively higher than the prior numbers, they're still lower than the "7K/day" number indicated. In any event, NY is up to 222K private QHPs and about 107K Medicaid/CHIP, which still pushes them above 100% of their CMS projection for the enrollment period.

The newest figures show that as of 9 a.m. Monday, 587,486 people had completed their applications on the insurance exchange and 328,796 went on to enroll in some sort of coverage. 

The enrollment figures are up from 230,624 on Dec. 24, which was the deadline for people to sign up for coverage that began on Jan. 1.  New Yorkers have until March 31 to obtain health coverage without suffering a tax penalty called for under the Affordable Care Act.

Of the 328,796 people who have so far obtained coverage, 222,011 have obtained private insurance and 106,785 have qualified for Medicaid...

“Activity on the NY State of Health site remains high, as close to 100,000 New Yorkers enrolled for quality, low-cost health insurance since December 24,” Donna Frescatore, executive director of NY State of Health, said. “We are very pleased with our overall results to date as well, with almost 330,000 enrolled, and more than 587,000 people have completed applications since the October 1 launch of the Marketplace.”