Happy Birthday #ACA! (Part 3: New vs. Renewals)

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7

Now it's time to move on to the actual demographic breakout of the 2024 Open Enrollment Period (OEP) Qualified Health Plan (QHP) enrollees.

First up is breaking out new enrollees vs. existing enrollees who either actively re-enroll in an exchange plan for another year or who passively allow themselves to be automatically renewed into their current plan (or to be "mapped" to a similar plan if the current one is no longer available).

Nationally, 24.3% of all exchange QHP enrollees were new this year...which is actually an increase over the 22.6% new figure last year. The other 75.7% are current enrollees who signed up for another year.

New York had the lowest percent of new enrollees (13.2%), while West Virginia had the highest at 34.4% (WV also had by far the highest year over year percent enrollment increase).

As I noted last. year, there's still a massive divide between federal and state-based exchanges when it comes to active renewals: Over 70% of federal exchange states actively renewed (which is good!)...but only 28% of state-based exchange enrollees did. Active renewals range from just 8.3% in Vermont to 79.3% in Utah.

Nationally, 40.5% of those renewing this year did so automatically...that is, they took no action whatsoever.