On the one hand, I'm kicking myself for not noticing this red flag when the final 2016 Open Enrollment numbers were released last week. On the other hand, I was trying to absorb, analyze and compile a lot of data at the time, so I should cut myself a bit of slack for missing it.
When the numbers were announced, one figure which seemed surprisingly high was that New York (which still hasn't actually released their final numbers yet) apparently enrolled around 400,000 people in their new ACA-created Basic Health Plan (BHP)...and that 300,000 of these folks had supposedly shifted to the BHP program from existing exchange QHP policies.
This did seem surprisingly high to me; I had assumed that instead of NY's QHP total going up around 25% (as I was expecting in most other states), it would stay essentially flat, with the cannibalization by BHPs essentially cancelling out the 100,000 new QHP enrollees I was expecting. 300K making the move was 3x as many as I was expecting. However, in the flurry of other data to crunch, I let this slip by me.
As of this morning, there were still 4 states with some 2016 Open Enrollment data missing: Idaho, Massachusetts, New York and Vermont. The Massachusetts exchange board held their monthly meeting today, so I can cross one more state off the list:
By early February, approximately 201,000 individuals were enrolled in 2016 health coverage.
Over 36,000 new members are enrolled in QHPs. For a frame of reference, our new members amount to about 15% of the size of last year’s estimated uninsured population*
Of the approximately 27,000 new members who indicated a race or ethnicity in their application, about 12% are of Hispanic, Latino or Spanish origin, 8% are African American and 4% are Chinese
We continue to see a high retention rate for our 2015 membership at about 94%
Individuals who selected a plan between January 24th and January 31st still have time to pay for coverage effective March 1, so new membership tied to Open Enrollment may continue to grow
Once the dust settled on the 2014 and 2015 Open Enrollment periods, only a handful of state exchanges bothered continuing to report off-season exchange enrollments, but I was able to extrapolate those numbers pretty accurately nationwide: Around 7,500 people per day were still signing up via Special Enrollment Periods throughout the summer/fall of 2014, and around 8,500 per day did so last year (not including the time-limited #ACATaxTime SEP from mid-March through the end of April 2015).
This year, that number is expected to drop somewhat due to HHS supposedly cracking down on SEPs in both variety and eligibility verification, but I still wouldn't be surprised if at least, say, 6,000 people per day end up signing up between now and next November (or around 1.6 million total, give or take).
Anyway, even the state exchanges which did keep posting updates generally only did so monthly...which is why I was pleasantly surprised to see that the Rhode Island exchange appears to be sticking to their Weekly Enrollment Report guns even after the dust has settled:
I'm swamped with day job stuff today, but this email just came through:
On the Oriely Factor it was indicated that you propose taking away social security benefits. I paid into ssi from age 13 to age 67. I support your ur champagne with donations and support your conditional approach. Please do not take my earned SSI
It took me a few minutes to figure out how this ended up in my in box, but then I realized: TedCrooz.com
As far as I can tell, this poor soul...
a) Mistook this website for that of Ted Cruz's, even though it's pretty obvious that it has no connection to his campaign whatsoever.
b) Watches The O'Reilly Factor on FOX News (he appears to be in at least his late 60's, so no shocker there)
c) Is (or was, until now) a supporter of Ted Cruz, to the point that he's apparently made financial donations to his campaign.
d) Is now, however, deeply concerned about Ted Cruz taking away his Social Security benefits, which he paid into for 54 years.
At first, I started to chuckle a little at his error and the "champagne" misspelling...but the more I thought about it, this is just plain sad and anger-inducing.
In all, 116,019 Connecticut residents signed up for private insurance through the state’s health insurance exchange, Access Health CT, during the open enrollment period that ended last week, officials said Monday.
That figure is slightly higher than the 110,095 who signed up during last year’s enrollment period and exchange officials’ goal for this year of signing up 105,000 to 115,000.
Connecticut only improved over last year by about 5.4%, but much of that is because, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation, CT only had around 62,000 uninsured people eligible for APTC assistance to begin with (they also have around 100K more uninsured who'd have to pay full price if they enrolled via the exchanges, but those people can get the same policies off-exchange anyway, and many very well might have done just that).
Emails released last week by the State Department that were found on Mrs. Clinton’s private server show that she was keenly interested in the administration’s push to win passage of the health care law.
...The email messages show that throughout the fall of 2009, as the health care push entered a decisive phase, Mrs. Clinton lobbied some members of Congress for votes and even debated sometimes-esoteric policy proposals with aides, some of whom had worked with her in the White House when she was first lady, after her own failed attempt to push a national health care overhaul.
...Congressional officials who worked on the Affordable Care Act said that Mrs. Clinton was an important and effective advocate.
About 316,000 households that got tax credits paid to them in advance but did not file any return at all last year. Before the healthcare law, many low-income people were not required to file taxes. Now they must do so if they got a subsidy. But if taxpayers don't realize it, that can create mix-ups.
Some 976,000 households that got tax credits and filed 2014 returns, but omitted a new form that is the key to accounting for their subsidies. Called Form 8962, it was introduced for the 2015 tax filing season.
About 147,000 households that had requested extensions to file their 2014 taxes, but never followed through.
For the past few weeks, I've been pointing out some of the reasons why a wholesale replacement of the entire U.S. healthcare system with a universal, comprehensive, single payer system in one shot (or even a short-term series of shots) would be absurdly improbable to happen even if Bernie Sanders not only won the Presidency (which, unlike some people, I do think could happen), but also somehow managed to along solidly progressive majorities in both the House and Senate (which, I'm sorry, I just don't). I then took a closer look at the ideas which Hillary Clinton has proposed so far, and found them to be important but mostly minor improvements.
Hmmm...OK, I guess "as of today" means I need to make the "thru date" 2/04/16 instead of 1/31 or 2/01, but whatever; the point is that this is Kentucky's final official total.
Kynect's total was 81,121 as of 12/26, so they only added about 12,500 more since Christmas. 93,687 is only around 75% of the 125K I was expecting, and is over 12,600 fewer private enrollees than they had last year, making them one of only 8 states to drop their open enrollment total.
