PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) — Rhode Island's health insurance exchange says time is almost up to purchase coverage for 2018.
HealthSource RI says Sunday is the last day to choose and pay for a 2018 health plan through the exchange for residents who don't receive affordable health coverage through an employer.
HealthSource RI said Friday that more than 32,000 people have signed up and many new enrollees are 18 to 34 years old.
Last year, about 30,000 people enrolled.
HealthSource RI says it wants to remind people they need to purchase insurance for 2018 to avoid a tax penalty.
Rhode Island has now officially beaten last year's total of 29,456 QHP selections, though they're still way down from the 34,670 they achieved two years ago. Of course they still have until tomorrow (New Year's Eve deadline), so they might be able to come close. At a minimum, RI is now at least 8.6% ahead of last year.
Default Re-Enrollment: Under current rules, consumers who do not take action during the open enrollment window are re-enrolled in the same plan they were in the previous year, even if that plan experienced significant premium increases. We are considering alternative options for re-enrollment, under which consumers who take no action might be defaulted into a lower cost plan rather than their current plan. We are considering allowing states to pursue these sorts of re-enrollment alternatives for coverage in 2016. The FFM is exploring such an approach for coverage in 2017.
Now here's some bad news: The effectuated enrollee drop-off could be fierce this spring, for two important reasons.
...So what's gonna be different for 2018?
Well, first of all, 41 states, the official Open Enrollment deadline was on December 15th. That means that unlike prior years, it's too late for most of these folks to change their minds. They can either stick with the policy they signed up for (or were signed up for) or they can drop it, but that's it. Of course, anyone who was enrolled into a differentpolicy than the one they already had technically still has a 60-day window from 12/31 (until March 1st) to choose a different policy via a Special Enrollment Period, but otherwise their options are limited.
In other words, assuming several hundred thousand people drop their policies after 12/15 but before 1/31, instead of already being accounted for, they won't show up in the until the First Quarter report is released, likely sometime in April. This will make it look as though the "March drop-off" is more like perhaps ~18% instead of ~14%.
The good news, as touted by myself and pretty much every other ACA supporter last week, is that in spite of every type of sabotage, undermining, obstruction and confusion thrown at Obamacare over the past year by Donald Trump along with Congressional Republicans, the 5th Open Enrollment Period for the Affordable Care Act is actually going...pretty well, all things considered.
As I noted last Wednesday, over 8.8 million people enrolled in exchange policies via the federal exchange (which covers 39 states), and I've also confirmed that another 2.8 million have enrolled in the other 11 states (+DC) which operate their own full ACA exchange engines, for a total of more than 11.6 million QHP selections so far. In addition, Open Enrollment is still ongoing across nearly half the country; not only do 10 of the 12 state-based exchanges have extended deadlines (all the way out to the traditional 1/31/18 cut-off for three of them), but thanks to a Special Enrollment Period created by CMS in response to the various hurricanes which ravaged southern states a few months back, 8 more states still have until New Year's Eve for people to #GetCovered.
I've confirmed with the Massachusetts Health Connector that their official QHP selection tally stood at exactly 262,534 as of Christmas Day (12/25).
This puts them a mere 232 higher than they were 6 days earlier (12/19), which seemed a little odd to me given that 12/23 was MA's deadline for January 1st coverage; normally I'd expect a last-minute enrollment surge in the final days ahead of a big deadline, although it's not nearly as big a deal in the states which still have later deadlines for February or March coverage. On the other hand, Christmas Eve and Day were included here, and no one enrolls in health insurance on Christmas, of course. I wouldn't expect much this week either with New Year's coming up; there's usualy a 9-day Dead Zone from 12/24 - 1/01 anyway.
Despite Changes, Idahoans Flock to Health Insurance Exchange
2018 Enrollment Nears Record
BOISE, Idaho – Your Health Idaho announced today that nearly 102,000 Idahoans signed up for 2018 health insurance coverage on the exchange.
“This is a testament to Idaho’s model for operating an exchange. Despite the enormous uncertainty from Washington, combined with a shortened enrollment period, Your Health Idaho has been able to serve near record numbers of Idahoans,” said Pat Kelly, executive director of Your Health Idaho.
The enrollment numbers include new and returning customers. A significant difference for 2018 is the monthly premium pricing. Increased tax credits offset rising premiums to the extent that some Idahoans purchased plans for little to no monthly cost. Enrollments in these less expensive bronze plans increased by fifteen percentage points over the previous year. In total, 101,793 Idahoans enrolled in 2018 health coverage in just half the time of last year.
HealthSource RI enrollment far exceeds projections
Updated Dec 22, 2017 at 7:48 PM
More than 30,700 have already signed up, and hours at the walk-in and call centers have been extended in anticipation of a surge in enrollments leading up to the Dec. 31 deadline.
PROVIDENCE — Rhode Island has outpaced projected sign-ups for Obamacare next year with more than 30,700 residents now enrolled in health insurance through the state-based health insurance exchange.
HealthSource RI officials expected to see around 30,000 people in total enrolled by the end of December. With a little more than a week to go and the last days of open enrollment typically the busiest, numbers are sure to increase.
More than 4 in 5 enrolled in Obamacare are in Trump states
WASHINGTON — Americans in states that Donald Trump carried in his march to the White House account for more than 4 in 5 of those signed up for coverage under the health care law the president still wants to take down.
An Associated Press analysis of new figures from the government found that 7.3 million of the 8.8 million consumers signed up so far for next year come from states Trump won in the 2016 presidential election. The four states with the highest number of sign-ups — Florida, Texas, North Carolina and Georgia, accounting for nearly 3.9 million customers — were all Trump states.
Yes, this is true: ~7.3 million out of 8.8 million, or roughly 83%, of enrollees in the 39 states covered by HealthCare.Gov do indeed reside in states won by Donald Trump last year.
Open enrollment on the state’s health care exchange, Access Health Connecticut, ends Friday at midnight.
Connecticut residents had one week longer to sign up for an insurance plan than customers of the federal site, healthcare.gov.
As of Thursday morning, some 106,000 people had signed up for health care plans through Access Health CT.
Exchange CEO Jim Wadleigh called this the most challenging open enrollment period in the five years it’s been up and running, citing uncertainty over the future of the health care law, mixed messages from the Trump administration, and the shortest enrollment period ever, at just seven weeks.
Just yesterday MNsure issued an unofficial tally of 106,000 QHP selections through 12/19. Yesterday also happened to be their December deadline for coverage starting in January, although their Open Enrollment Period still runs through January 14th.
Today they updated the number officially, including the final mid-season deadline:
Total enrollments for 2018 now 12.5 percent ahead of where they were this time last year
ST. PAUL, Minn.—Following the first deadline for 2018 coverage, 108,540 Minnesotans have enrolled in private health coverage through MNsure. Yesterday, December 20, was the deadline for coverage beginning January 1. Minnesotans have until January 14 to sign up for coverage starting February 1, 2018.
Last year after the first deadline, MNsure had 96,540 enrollments, putting this year 12,000 enrollments ahead of last year at this time, or 12.5 percent.
Now that it appears that the full list of states and counties eligible for hurricane (or windstorm, in the case of Maine) Special Enrollment Periods (SEP) has settled down, Huffington Post reporter Jonathan Cohn asked an interesting question:
How if at all do you allow for the extensions in FL, TX, etc.? Or, to put another way, how many post-Dec 15 signups through https://t.co/bhGNSognZK do you expect?
The closest parallel to this particular situation I can think of was the #ACATaxTime SEP back in spring 2015. In that case, it was the first year that the ACA's (defunct as of this morning) Individual Mandate was being enforced, and a lot of people either never got the message about being required to #GetCovered or at least pretended that they didn't.
Their record to date was last year, when they had a total of 266,664 QHP selections through January 31st, 2017...and unlike most states, the deadline in MA is still a month away (residents have until 12/23 to enroll for January coverage and until 1/23/18 to enroll for February coverage).
This gives Massachusetts a full 5 weeks to add at least 4,400 more people to break that record. They've added 2,487 in the past 13 days; if they kept that pace they'd add 6,685 more between now and 1/23, so it's not unreasonable to think they can pull that off.
UPDATE: OK, it looks like the big HealthCare.Gov Final Surge Report is gonna be released sometime Thursday morning. Unfortunately, I have a can't-miss meeting in the morning as well, so there's a good chance that after sitting at my desk and constantly refreshing/checking email all day today, I may ironically end up missing the big reveal and not being able to post about it for an hour or so after it comes out.
UPDATE 12/21/17: As of 2:00pm, still nothing. Speculation now brewing that they may be hoping to bury the report at 4:59pm on the Friday before Christmas. Hoping to be proven wrong.
UPDATE 2:35pm: h/t to Adam Sacarny for the head's up:
Exchange open enrollment for 2018 coverage ended w/ approx 8.8M people enrolling in coverage. Great job to the @CMSGov team for the work you did to make this the smoothest experience for consumers to date. We take pride in providing great customer service.
Not an official enrollment update report but close enough (via email from MNsure):
December 20, 2017
Today is the last day for Minnesotans to sign up for health coverage beginning January 1
ST. PAUL, Minn.—Today is the last day for Minnesotans to sign up for health coverage beginning January 1, 2018. Over the last few days, and including the start of today, MNsure has been very busy. Yesterday, there were over 50,000 MNsure.org sessions and MNsure fielded over 5,000 calls. Today is off to a strong start as well, with nearly 21,000 MNsure.org sessions and over 2,200 calls.
To date, MNsure has enrolled over 106,000 Minnesotans in health coverage for 2018 and the average tax credit for Minnesota families is over $7,000 a year.
MNsure.org will remain available for consumers to shop until midnight and the contact center will remain open till midnight as well. Any calls on hold at midnight will be answered.
If Minnesotans do not apply for health coverage by midnight tonight, they can still get coverage beginning February 1, 2018 if they apply by January 14, 2018.
BUSY DAY: I was expecting the big Week 7 HC.gov Snapshot Report to come out this morning, but it hasn't been released yet. Instead, I have major updates from the three largest state-based exchanges: New York, California and now Washington State...and of the three, WA is the most impressive:
Washington Healthplanfinder Sign-Ups Jump Past 230,000, Shatter Last Year’s Record Pace
Final deadline for remaining customers to select 2018 health and dental coverage is Jan. 15
The Washington Health Benefit Exchange today announced that more than 230,000 customers selected health plans through Washington Healthplanfinder by the Dec. 15 deadline for coverage that begins on Jan. 1. Customers who have not yet applied for coverage still have until Jan. 15 to sign up for health and dental plans that begin on Feb. 1.
Covered California just announced their latest 2018 Open Enrollment Period numbers:
220,000 new enrollees as of 12/15 (10% higher than last year)
Extended Jan. start deadline to 12/22 to handle high demand
Final deadline still same as last year (1/31/18)
~1.2 million active or passive renewals
~1.4 million total enrollees (renewals + new enrollments)
Assuming the 1.2 million figure is very close to the exact number, that makes the total number around 1.42 million QHP selections.
This brings CoveredCA within 9% of last year's total, and within 10% of their all-time total set a year earlier.
The official total as of 12/17 last year (with an extra 2 days) was 1,437,150 enrollments, about 1% higher. Given that CoveredCA is keeping to the same January 31st deadline as prior years, I'm pretty sure they'll end up very close to last year's final total when the dust settles.
For context, as of 12/17/16, New York had enrolled 213,248 people in Qualified Health Plans (QHPs), putting them over 7% ahead of the same point last year...and unlike most states, New York's Open Enrollment Period is just as long as prior years, running all the way out to January 31st.
Put another way: New York's final enrollment tally last year was 242,880, meaning they're just 6% away from breaking that number with six weeks left to go. Their all-time record was set in OE2 with 409,000 QHP selections, but that's a meaningless comparison since the Essential Plan was added the following year, cannibalizing several hundred thousand enrollees anyway.
Welp. The Republicans did it. And later today, barring some dramatic last-minute development, the GOP Tax Scam is gonna be signed into law.
UPDATE: It's done. It passed the GOP House, GOP Senate and GOP House (again). Trump's signing it at any moment.
The GOP Tax Scam does many terrible things, of course, many of which are worse than repealing the ACA’s individual mandate. And even within the healthcare arena, the $25 billion PAYGO Medicare cut caused by the GOP tax scam is arguably more damaging overall.
Still, ACA stuff is my wheelhouse, so I’ll stick to the direct impact the bill (if it does become law) would have on the Affordable Care Act.
Above is the video explainer I whipped up a few weeks ago. It’s long and a bit wonky, but it should give a pretty good overview of the situation.
What about the two “market stabilization” bills that Susan Collins was supposedly demanding in return for her “Yes” vote? Yeah, about those:
In the wake of a windstorm that knocked out power to more than 400,000 Mainers, federal officials have agreed to give Mainers more time to enroll for health care under the Affordable Care Act.
U.S. Sen. Angus King sent a letter to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services in November requesting an extended deadline for Mainers who spent the better part of a week in the dark without internet or computer access. On Friday, King shared the agency’s reply, which said Mainers likely would qualify for a special enrollment period, extending their enrollment deadline.
“CMS recognizes that certain exceptional circumstances, including a natural disaster such as a severe windstorm, can prevent an individual from enrolling in coverage before an open enrollment period expires,” CMS Administrator Seema Verma said in her reply to King.
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.
OK. The Big News that everyone's waiting on this week regarding the 2018 Open Enrollment Period will come on Wednesday. That's when CMS will presumably post the Week 7 Snapshot Report for HealthCare.Gov, which covers 39 states. Wednesdays are also usually when Covered California, the largest state-based exchange, posts their updates as well.
That leaves the other 11 smaller state-based marketplaces (SBMs), of which only one, Colorado, has posted an update so far this week. As it happens, however, that was an impressive update: Colorado's total enrollments to date now stand at 149,000 people, about 7% ahead of last year. With CO added to the mix, I've now confirmed exactly 2,522,078 QHP selections across those 12 SBMs...which means the SBMs have already broken my personal final QHP projection of 2.5 million as of January 31st.
Connect for Health Colorado® Reports Increase in Healthcare Plan Selections for 2018; Open Enrollment Continues to January 12, 2018
DENVER — More than 149,000 Coloradans selected healthcare coverage for 2018 through the state health insurance Marketplace through the December 17, 2017, a rate 7 percent ahead of signups one year ago, according to new data released today by Connect for Health Colorado®, mid-way through the Open Enrollment period for 2018 coverage.
“It’s not over, but the first half of this Open Enrollment period has set a solid pace,” said Connect for Health Colorado CEO Kevin Patterson. “We are still enrolling Coloradans who buy their own health insurance through January 12. I encourage everyone who does not have coverage yet to go to our site and see if they qualify for financial help. My message is, ‘Don’t leave money on the table.’ We know that too many Coloradans who qualify for help assume that they don’t.”
Yes, The Big Deadline, December 15th, has finally come and gone, and the half-length, batcrap insane 2018 Open Enrollment Period is over and done with, right?
Well...sort of.
It's true that the official deadline to #GetCovered for 2018 has passed for HealthCare.Gov (which operates 39 states), along with the state-based exchanges in Vermont and Idaho.
HOWEVER...there are 9 other state exchanges, as well as the one in the District of Columbia, which have deadlines later than December 15th:
The other day it was reported that unlike prior years, HealthCare.Gov would not be offering any type of "In Line By Midnight" grace period this year for people who start their ACA application today but aren't able to complete it in time for whatever reason.
Apparently that isn't quite the case...
It's busy at our call center today! If you call and are asked to leave your name and phone number, please do so. A call center rep will call you back after Dec 15 to make sure you have Marketplace coverage that starts Jan 1. You may also visit https://t.co/eTfU7hBbyh to enroll.
I'm assuming whoever posted the update simply forgot to also update the "as of" date; presumably it's as of yesterday (December 14th), but I've put in a request for clarification.
UPDATE: Yup, they've since corrected the date to read 12/15/17 (basically, as of this morning I presume).
It's important to note that today is not the deadline for Connecticut residents to enroll; AccessHealthCT's deadline isn't until next Friday, December 22nd.
According to Steve Valandra, spokesperson for the Washington State Office of the Insurance Commissioner, the department has already come to a "done deal" agreement with Centene/Ambetter, the terms of which include:
The cease & desist order will be removed immediately, allowing Centene/Ambetter to continue selling plans on the individual market in Washington (including the ACA exchange)
Centene/Ambetter will immediately ameliorate all patient billing errors and other issues
Centene/Ambetter will be hit with a $1.5 million fine, but $1 million of this will be suspended if there are no further violations for at least 2 years
Centene/Ambetter must hire an external auditor, approved by the state insurance dept., to go over their books/etc.
The official notice of this agreement will be posted publicly on the Insurance Commissioner's website within 5 days.
The number of new consumers signing up for coverage remains ahead of last year’s pace, with more than 38,000 selecting a plan during the past three days.
Consumers now have until the end of Dec. 22 to sign up for health care coverage that will begin on Jan. 1.
Based on the first month’s enrollment, most consumers are paying less for coverage.
Covered California is working to distinguish the deadline for open enrollment in California — which ends Jan. 31 — from the shorter period for much of the nation.
SACRAMENTO, Calif. — In response to a strong surge in demand, Covered California is giving consumers more time to sign up for health coverage that will begin on Jan. 1, 2018.
First Half of 2017 Average Effectuated Enrollment Report
Effectuated Enrollment Analysis
According to data as of September 15, 2017, an average of 10.1 million individuals had effectuated their coverage through June 2017, meaning that they selected a plan and paid their premium. This is approximately 200,000 fewer effectuated individuals compared to the effectuated report for the first half of 2016 and about 2.1 million below the number of plan selections at the end of 2017 open enrollment.
This is an astounding level of negligence on the part of that salesperson and/or company.
Please spread the word: YOU CANNOT SWITCH TO AN ACA-COMPLIANT PLAN OUTSIDE OF OPEN ENROLLMENT unless you have a qualifying event. A catastrophic health problem is NOT a qualifying event.https://t.co/BAPChCasOG
Many of you have heard the story of Laura Packard, a young woman who was diagnosed with stage 4 Hodgkin’s disease last spring, and who has since become a powerful advocate for the Affordable Care Act, writing op-ed pieces for US News & World Report. recording videos for NowThis and so forth.
OLYMPIA, Wash. — The Washington Health Benefit Exchange today is alerting customers who have not yet signed up for 2018 coverage that 11:59 p.m. this Friday, Dec. 15 is the deadline to select health and dental plans through Washington Healthplanfinder that begin on Jan 1, 2018. After Dec. 15, individuals have until Jan. 15, 2018 to secure annual coverage that would start on Feb. 1, 2018.
Washingtonians seeking coverage for 2018 include 40,000 new customers who did not have coverage in the marketplace last year. The total number of new applicants represents a 47 percent increase over last year.
OPEN ENROLLMENT EXTENDED UNTIL DEC. 22
ONE WEEK ADDED TO ENROLL IN 2018 HEALTH, DENTAL COVERAGE
BALTIMORE (DEC. 13, 2017) – Open enrollment through Maryland Health Connection has been extended until Friday, Dec. 22 to choose a plan for health coverage to begin Jan. 1, 2018, with expanded call center hours through next week.
Individuals can apply at MarylandHealthConnection.gov or through the “Enroll MHC” mobile app available free in the App Store (iOS) and the Google Play Store (Android).
Also, hundreds of insurance brokers and navigators around the state can help Marylanders apply for financial help and enroll in a plan. Their locations and contact information are available at MarylandHealthConnection.gov or through a GPS-enabled locator tool on the app.
UPDATE: Minor updates out of New York and Washington State added later today have nudged the official national QHP selection tally over the 7.0 million mark. All numbers below have been updated to include these additions.
UPDATE 12/14/17: With the latest update from California, the confirmed national QHP selection total has now officially broken 7.1 million.
Week 6, Dec 3- Dec 9, 2017
In week six of Open Enrollment for 2018, 1,073,921 people selected plans using the HealthCare.gov platform. As in past years, enrollment weeks are measured Sunday through Saturday.
At week six of Open Enrollment nearly 29,000 Rhode Islanders have enrolled in coverage, which is about five percent more than last year. HealthSource RI continues to see an increase in new customers. We have more than three times the number of new enrollees this Open Enrollment period compared to the previous. HealthSource RI is pleased to see an increase in customers age 18-34, often known as “young invincibles.” While 25 percent of our renewing customers are age 18-34, 34 percent of our new customers fall into this age group.
Rhode Island is a tiny state, of course, so this doesn't necessarily mean much nationally, but it's great news across the board nonetheless.
According to the CMS Public Use File, Rhode Island's official tally as of 12/10/16 was 27,555 enrollees; 29,000 is indeed 5.2% higher. In fact, they only need 500 more people to beat their OE4 numbers, though they'd have to add another 5,700 to reach the all-time Rhode Island record of 34,670 set in OE3.
This is a really minor update, but every person counts; as of December 10th...
260,391 plans selected and enrollments (reminder, we did auto renewal last month, so this includes current members)
29,115 plans selected and enrollments by people who currently don’t have coverage through the Exchange (these are part of the 260,391)
This is a mere 576 higher than MA's tally from four days earlier, but considering auto-renewals are included, it makes sense: The odds are that a couple thousand of those auto-renewed went back in and cancelled their renewals, partly cancelling out some of the new enrollment numbers.
Anyway, the CMS Public Use File lists Massachusetts as officially enrolling 247,121 people as of December 10th last year, so they're still running 5.3% ahead of that. They need 6,300 more enrollees (net) to break last year's record...but keep in mind that MA is one of the states with an extended deadline: Baystaters can still enroll as late as January 23rd.
A few days ago I noted that based on a rather cryptic press release from Connect for Health Colorado, I deduced that C4HCO had enrolled a minimum of 53,000 people in 2018 ACA exchange policies as of December 7th. Today, however, Louise Norris has clarified that the actual 12/07 tally in CO was 59,590...and that this does not include auto-renewals, as some of the other state-based exchanges have already done:
Not much to add to this. Here's the state-level breakout of how many children were enrolled in the CHIP program in 2016; it inched slightly upwards this year:
(sigh) An anonymous emailer just gave me this heads' up:
New Jersey has no local TV stations. It all comes out of NYC for the most part with the south getting Philly.
Commercials from insurance companies in NY give the enrollment end date at Jan 31. Fidelis Care appears to be the most active at the moment but the real activity will come at the end of next month.
I think many people in NJ will think they have till Jan 31 to enroll.
I do not know if the issue exists between other borders between states with different cutoffs.
This is an excellent point. New York runs their own ACA exchange, NY State of Health...and their 2018 Open Enrollment Period runs all the way through January 31st (although you do have to enroll by Friday in order to have coverage starting on January 1st).
New Jersey, on the other hand, is run through the federal exchange, HealthCare.Gov, and for NJ residents the final deadline for all of 2018 is Friday.
Given how much I've been shouting from the rooftops about the importance of everyone #GettingCovered the past month or so, I'm fully aware of the irony of what I'm about to say:
My wife and I finally #GotCovered this morning at HealthCare.Gov.
We logged into our current account, reviewed our options and in the end settled on...pretty much the same Gold HMO we already have today. It's actually a slightly different policy--Blue Care Network of MIchigan elimiated the "HMO Select" option and replaced it with the "HMO Preferred" option. As far as we can tell, the only differences are the (unsubsidized) premium price, which shot up by about $300/month (ouch.) and the deductible, when went up from $500 to $1,000.
For us, we had two major decisions to make: Gold vs. Silver...and (assuming we had gone with Silver), On-Exchange vs. Off-Exchange.
As I have said, the pace of plan selections continues to run ahead of all previous years but there are plenty of people yet to act to avoid a gap in coverage. Our message remains: Don’t leave money on the table. We know from our own survey that too often Coloradans who are eligible for financial help assume that they make too much to get an Advance Premium Tax Credit.
OK. Last year (OE4) was Colorado's best year so far, with 161,568 QHP selections as of 1/31/17. According to the CMS Public Use File, they hit 42,796 as of 12/03/16 and 59,407 as of 12/10/16. That's an average of 2,373 per day between 12/04 - 12/10, which means they should have reached a minimum of 52,288 QHPs as of 12/07/16.
A week ago I noted that total Idaho exchange enrollments had reached around 87,000 people as of 11/30. Today Your Health Idaho confirmed that they're "nearing 90,000" enrollments for 2018, which is about where they expected it to be at this point. They also noted that call volume and web traffic are still ahead of last year.
Not much else to say other than ID has reached about 90% of their highest enrollment tally (they had 101,073 QHP selections in 2016 and 100,082 last year) with a week left to go. Last year they had enrolled 91,509 people as of December 10th, but of course the final deadline is a week from today instead of January 31st this time around, so they'd need to add another 10,000 over the next week to match last year's tally.
This means they added 1,613 more people in the past week, but the pool of current enrollees dropped by 1,675, which means that at least a small number have actively cancelled their policies altogether. Looked at another way, the number of new enrollees has increased by 3,211 (from 11,749 to 14,960), which means that, again, a couple thousand current enrollees who either actively (or were passively) auto-renewed have since gone back into the system and changed their mind and cancelled their 2018 plans. This is normal, especially for the states which "front-load" auto-renewals before the December deadline passes.
Last winter and spring, you may recall that I crunched a ton of data to come up with my best estimates about just how many people were projected to lose their healthcare coverage at the Congressional District level in the event various versions of Affordable Care Act repeal/replacement bills were to be signed into law (the AHCA, BCRAP, ORRA and so forth). After the first couple of attempts, the folks over at the Center for American Progress took over much of the heavy lifting on my part.
CAP started breaking the numbers out, leaving me to separate them out into easily-sharable state-level infographics (I also added partisan info for each member of Congress, since every Democrat has been steadfastly opposed to each one of these bills, while just about every Republican has supported most of them so far).
Eureka! I've finally acquired fairly up-to-date Open Enrollment data for the last blank state on my list: Vermont. The exchange representative kept it simple for me:
Vermont’s net plan selections as of December 2, 2017:
25,559 renewing individuals
1,335 new individuals (including those previously, but not currently, enrolled)
Enrollment in Qualified Health Plans and Essential Plan Reaches Nearly 900,000
December 15th is the Deadline to Enroll for January Coverage
New Yorkers Urged to Enroll Now
ALBANY, N.Y. (December 7, 2017) - NY State of Health, the state’s official health plan Marketplace, today announced enrollment in Qualified Health Plans (QHP) and the Essential Plan have reached nearly 900,000—continuing to outpace enrollment at the same point last year by 13 percent.
I've just been sent a link to the first official update on ACA exchange enrollment in DC. It includes a whole mess of demographic data (click below for full-size version), but the main takeaway is near the top: 18,740 QHP selections as of December 5th (compared against December 8th of last year). With auto-renewals included, this year's tally is about 2% shy vs. last year, but again, those extra 3 days make a bigger difference than you might think, especially as we approach the mid-December deadline.
It's important to remember that DC, along with California and New York, is sticking with the full 3-month Open Enrollment Period this year, so residents will still have another 6 weeks after 12/15 to sign up for coverage starting in either February or March.
Excellent news out of Massachusetts! I haven't posted any updates from the Bay State since 11/15, when they reported enrollments were up 40% year over year, but today they've given me very comprehensive and up-to-date numbers:
As of Dec. 6, we had a total of 259,815 plan selections and enrollments. This includes auto renewal of existing members. Of that, 26,074 are people who are new for 2018.
For comparison sake, for Dec. 6, 2016, we were at 244,845, and 25,746 for the new. These numbers also includes auto renewal, of course.
Obviously when you throw auto-renewals into the mix, the percentage increase drops substantially, but they're still up 6% over last year (nearly 15,000 people), and new enrolles are up about 1%.
OK, today saw two major 2018 Open Enrollment Period data updates out of HealthCare.Gov and Covered California, plus a minor one out of Maryland.
As I reported this morning, the HC.gov Week 5 Snapshot report came in much lower than I expected this week, at just 823K vs. the 1.2 million I was anticipating; as a result, the HC.gov section of The Graph (in green below) has finally reverted back to my original projection line with a total of 3.6 million as of December 2nd. If it follows my trendline this week, HC.gov should tack on another 1.2 million for a total of 4.8 million by Saturday night, December 9th, ahead of what should be the Big Final Week Surge.
Covered California’s Open Enrollment Continues at a Brisk Pace with New Data Showing Most Consumers Who Renewed and Enrolled in November will Pay Less in 2018
More than 102,000 new consumers selected a plan during the first month of open enrollment, a 28 percent increase over the same time period last year.
This just in from the California Insurance Dept...
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After being way off in my initial HC.gov projections the first and second weeks of the 2018 Open Enrollment Period, I recalibrated and was dead on target for Weeks 3and 4: As of November 25th, just shy of 2.8 million people had selected Qualified Health Plans (QHPs) through the federal exchange.
As I had predicted, there were a bunch of eye-roll-inducing headlines about how enrollments had dropped off a cliff, etc etc, which completely ignored the fact that it was Thanksgiving week, and that a 35%+ drop-off is typical for the holiday weekend. Whatever.
Just now, the MD Health Connection posted an update through this week:
Incoming exec director Michele Eberle of @MarylandConnect urges Marylanders to enroll in health coverage with 10 days left. New enrollments up 14% this year. Mobile app visitors up 140% Overall enrollment up 4% Keep it going! pic.twitter.com/75g2qu5PbC
I'm assuming these stats are as of December 4th. Last year MD's official QHP selection tally as of December 3rd was around 129,000; if they're 4% ahead of that as of the same date, that means they should have a little over 134,000 to date this year.
So @SenatorCollins sold out for bills which won’t help much and aren’t gonna happen anyway.@jeffflake sold out for a promise to attend a meeting which won’t happen.@lisamurkowski sold out for destroying her own environment.@SenJohnMcCain sold out for...nothing at all. Huh.
As I had previously noted, the Alexander-Murray bill would simply restore CSR funding into place which was already assumed to be there when the CBO made their "13 million losing coverage/10% rate hike" projection earlier, making passing it kind of a non-factor when it comes to the impact of repealing the mandate. That just left the reinsurance bill. Collins original proposal was a mere $2.25 billion/year (and only for two years at that)...which I estimated would fall short by a factor of anywhere from 3x to 7x, depending on which back-of-the-envelope math you use:
So one of the Big Deals on Twitter this morning was this tweet by Republican(correction: Former Republican) MSNBC talking head Joe Scarborough:
.@SenOrrinHatch talking about children's health care: “I have a rough time wanting to spend billions and billions and trillions of dollars to help people who won’t help themselves – won’t lift a finger – and expect the federal government to do everything.”
...which caused an immediate and understandable backlash uproar, including my own tweet (since deleted),
Holy crap. They're CHILDREN. Plus...didn't he used to brag about helping CREATE the CHIP program in the first place?
I hadn't actually seen the full clip at the time. My own tweet went semi-viral, with several hundred RTs and a bunch of Likes within a couple of hours.
However, shortly after that, Bloomberg reporter Steven Dennis correctly noted that...
It's not over yet, since the House of Representatives still has to vote on the bill again (either as is, or after hashing out the differences between the House and Senate versions of the bill), but assuming the final version of the bill includes mandate repeal and is indeed signed into law, this is what the ACA's 3-legged stool would look like when the dust settles.
Obviously I'll have much more to say about what happened last night soon, but for the moment I'll leave it at this.
Kelly said about 90,000 people were insured through the exchange at any given time this year. (People could enroll or cancel during the year.) And at the end of last year’s open-enrollment period, more than 100,000 were signed up for coverage.
This month, the exchange has renewed 86,300 customers for 2018 plans. The new sign-ups are much lower, in the hundreds. Kelly said total enrollment so far — 2017 customers being rolled over into 2018, plus the new sign-ups — exceeds 87,000.
“That number has grown every day in the last several weeks,” he said.
Less than 10 percent of people who were auto-renewed for 2018 plans have canceled so far, he said. More people could cancel by the deadline, though; last year, almost 30 percent of auto-renewed plans had been canceled when the dust settled on the enrollment period.
They've also done something interesting: They're listing the 11,055 current enrollees who haven't actively re-enrolled as of yet. If every one of them did so (they won't), that would bring the grand total up to 101.4K.
Connect for Health Colorado® Reports Increase in 2018 Medical Plan Selections
DENVER — More than 43,000 Coloradans selected healthcare coverage for 2018 through the state health insurance Marketplace in November, a rate 29 percent ahead of signups one year ago, according to new data released today by Connect for Health Colorado®.
“With only two weeks left to enroll for January coverage, I am pleased with the pace of plan selections,” said Connect for Health Colorado CEO Kevin Patterson. “I know people are busy this time of year but I encourage everyone who buys their own health insurance to check to see if they qualify for financial assistance, review the available plans, and complete an enrollment before the last-minute rush. Many will be surprised that they qualify for financial help.”
