Minnesota: 101.6K QHPs thru 12/15, still 4 weeks to go

This Star Tribune article from Friday night puts Minnesota's ACA exchange total at 101.6K, only slightly higher than the 100K figure claimed in a KXRA article from over 3 weeks earlier. I'm not sure what happened there--either the KXRA article had the earlier number wrong, or MNsure only enrolled 1,600 people between 11/24 - 12/15, which I find difficult to believe.

Regardless, that's still another 1,600 or so added to the tally. They only need 16,028 more between now and January 14th, although the official ASPE report for OE4 put Minnesota's QHP number at just 109,974, so I'm not sure where the other 7,680 enrollees went. Huh.

MNsure optimistic about sign-ups as deadlines approach

MNsure continues to make progress on enrollment goals for 2018, officials said Friday, as the state’s health insurance exchange nears a deadline next week for January coverage.

Friday was the final deadline for people in most other states to buy individual market coverage through the federal government’s HealthCare.gov website.

In Minnesota, state officials opted to give more time for people shopping via MNsure, with the open enrollment period stretching through Jan. 14. People who don’t hit the deadline on Wednesday for coverage that starts Jan. 1 will still have a few weeks to buy policies that take effect in February.

“We’re about 5,000 enrollments ahead of where we were at this time last year,” said Jeremy Drucker, a MNsure spokesman. “We expect that number to continue growing since the deadline for January coverage isn’t until Dec. 20.”

MNsure is an option for the roughly 166,000 Minnesotans who buy individual health insurance, a group comprising primarily people under age 65 who are self-employed or don’t get coverage from their employer.

As of Friday, 101,626 people had signed up for 2018 coverage via MNsure, with just over four weeks to go in open enrollment. By the end of last year’s open enrollment period, the sign-up tally for 2017 coverage was 117,654.

...This year, effectuated enrollment at MNsure has ranged from a March peak of roughly 94,000 down to 87,491 in October. Next year, the exchange’s budget assumes an early peak of 97,424 with year-end effectuated enrollment at 91,224 — a growth rate of roughly 4 percent.

“We’re still optimistic that we’ll meet or exceed our budget goal for effectuated enrollment,” Drucker said.