Rhode Island: 9,825 QHP renewals, 2,522 new enrollees thru 12/13

Just over a month into open enrollment at HealthSource RI, nearly half of the people who purchased health insurance in 2014 have renewed coverage for another year,  the state-based exchange created under the Affordable Care Act announced Wednesday.

Through Dec. 13,  9,825 people, or 48 percent had renewed coverage, with  close to 60 percent opting to switch to different plans.

Another 2,522 have signed up for health insurance for the first time, bringing total enrollment to 12,347.

The numbers in RI are small, but there's some important data points here:

• First, Rhode Island is enrolling people at 3x their 2014 rate so far, and this doesn't include the final December surge (RI's deadline isn't until 12/23).

• Second, RI is the only state which is requiring manual renewals/re-enrollments for existing policyholders as a matter of policy, not due to technical reasons (that is, MA, MD, NV & OR enrollees had to start over again because they all had to scrap their old website platforms. Rhode Island's site always worked, but they want to make sure everyone knows what their pricing/policy options are, so has a no-autorenewal policy in place).

• Third, because of the above policy, it's very encouraging to know that 48% of their current enrollees had already gone through the process as of Saturday (again, that leaves another 10 days for the other 52% to do so).

• Fourth, while the vast majority of "autorenewal" enrollees in other states (and, I'd imagine, most manual renewals as well) just end up keeping the same plan even if switching would save them money, check out that 60% switcher rate in RI!

UPDATE: Here's the official press release; it includes a bunch of other demographic stuff but no additional key numbers (ie, SHOP, Medicaid, etc)