Charles Gaba's blog

AccessHealth CT reported 104.4K QHP selections as of 1/05 a week or so ago. They just posted a new quickie update via Twitter:

So far this year we've had 15,214 new QHP customers, for a total of 108,830. #AHCTBoDMeeting

— Access Health CT (@AccessHealthCT) January 21, 2016

For the record, that also means 93,616 renewals from last year.

They also confirmed later that these numbers are as of 1/19, so that's an additional 4,467 in 14 days, or 319 per day on average.

They'll almost certainly reach their own target of 105K - 115K QHPs, but to achieve my target of 125K they'll have to ramp things up to over 1,300 per day for the remaining 12 days of open enrollment, which is probably pushing it (120K might be doable, however).

No official press release, but this was just posted on Twitter a few minutes ago:

We have 155,000 already enrolled this year, up 60% from last year! @MarylandConnect @BMore_Healthy @HCAMaryland pic.twitter.com/oyqtiA3ccW

— Leana Wen, M.D. (@DrLeanaWen) January 21, 2016

Maryland had previously reported just over 150,000 QHPs as of 12/28/15, so this sounds about right: Around 5,000 more people in the first 3 weeks of January, with 10 days left to go (I'm not sure what date the 155K figure is through, I'll assume that's as of last night). That's roughly 220 per day.

Assuming no final week surge of any sort, Maryland should add roughly 2,200 more people by the 31st, but I'm guessing it'll be closer to another 5K, for perhaps 160K in the end.

UPDATE 1/21/16: Updated to include new data from Colorado, Maryland, Connecticut and California.

I launched the "State by State" chart feature towards the end of the 2015 Open Enrollment period last time around, and it proved to be pretty popular, so I've brought it back this year.

Note that whle the enrollment numbers for most states below are current through January 16th, most of the state-based exchanges are either slightly more current or up to three weeks behind.

With that caveat out of the way:

MNsure has broken the 75K mark:

At yesterday's MNsure Legislative Oversight Committee meeting, CEO Allison O'Toole reported that as of January 15, MNsure had enrolled 75,000 Minnesotans into private health insurance coverage since the beginning of open enrollment, November 1, 2015.

As of January 10, MNsure had enrolled 69,671 Minnesotans into private coverage. This means MNsure has seen an increase of 5,329 private plan enrollments in five days. In addition, about 45 percent of private plan enrollees are new to MNsure for 2016. This is the highest percentage of new enrollees nationwide.

MNsure's goal is to enroll 83,000 Minnesotans by the end of open enrollment.

This will be the final enrollment update until preliminary end of open enrollment numbers are released on Monday, February 1.

As a reminder, the 2016 open enrollment period ends on Sunday, January 31. The MNsure Contact Center will be open extended hours on Saturday, January 30, from 8 a.m. - 8 p.m., and on Sunday, January 31, from 8 a.m. - midnight.

Here's what I wrote a few days ago:

The national total was around 11.50 million QHP selections as of January 9th. Since I won't know how big of a difference the "Live Purge!" factor is making until well after the end of March (when the Q1 effectuation report comes out), I still have to work within the confines of how CMS has been reporting enrollments this season.

With that in mind, I've dropped my end-of-OE3 projection down from 14.7 million to somewhere between 13.8 - 14.2 million (call it 14.0 million even for simplicity).

In order to hit 14.0 million total, 2.5 million people will have to enroll in the final 3 weeks, most likely broken out something like:

Until tonight, I hadn't decided for certain who I'm voting for in the Democratic Presidential Primary between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders. That is, I've made no secret about being a "Hillary leaner"...but I am a strong supporter of single payer healthcare (or something close to it, anyway), I do have concerns about her close ties to Wall Street, I do side more closely with Sanders than Clinton on many other issues, and yes, I'm still deeply bothered by her vote over a decade ago to invade Iraq. I used to listen to "Brunch with Bernie" on the Thom Hartmann show years ago (I think it used to be broadcast on Air America?), and gained tremendous respect for Sen. Sanders and his no-nonsense style.

Over the past few months, I've ranted repeatedly about what a stupid, short-sighted, petty move it is of Kentucky Governor Matt Bevin to shut down the kynect ACA exchange, for a variety of reasons...most of which center around the fact that the kynect exchange has been operating smoothly since the moment it launched in October 2013. In other words, there's very little reason to kill kynect, and plenty of reasons to keep it operational.

This does not mean that I'm opposed to moving any state-based exchanges over to Healthcare.Gov. As I said back in June, right after the King v. Burwell decision came out:

Covered California sent out an interesting press release today:

Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi visited the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), today to highlight a new report showing that thousands of Californians who have obtained health insurance as a result of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act have received vital treatment — including brain surgeries, heart transplants, cancer treatment and trauma care — since January 2014, when the health exchange opened its doors.

“Today’s report is the latest evidence that the Affordable Care Act is delivering on the promise of making health care a right for all, not just a privilege for the few,” Pelosi said. “Covered California has been an enormous success. Thanks to this historic law, nearly 1.3 million Californians now have affordable coverage through the Covered California marketplace — and this data today makes clear that Californians are using this coverage to access vital, high-quality health care.”

Here's Connect for Health Colorado's latest enrollment update:

DENVER — Between Nov.1 and Jan. 15, more than 190,000 Coloradans enrolled in health coverage for 2016, either in private health insurance purchased through the state health insurance Marketplace or in Medicaid, or Child Health Plan Plus (CHP+), according to new data released today by Connect for Health Colorado® and the Colorado Department of Health Care Policy and Financing.

“These enrollment figures show strong growth during this open enrollment period,” said Connect for Health Colorado® CEO Kevin Patterson.  “But we are now only days away from this year’s enrollment deadline for many. I strongly urge everyone who does not have health insurance provided through their employer to act right now to provide financial security for their families and to avoid a penalty that experts estimate will average nearly $1,000 per household. The final deadline for 2016 coverage for many Coloradans is Jan. 31.”

Back in early December there was a lot of discussion/debate about whether or not people were using Special Enrollment Periods to "game the system". The idea is that people may be waiting until after Open Enrollment ends, ginning up a "qualifying life event" to enroll off-season, quickly arranging for a bunch of pricey healthcare services/procedures and then dropping their policy as soon as possible. By taking advantage of the various lengthy grace periods as well as loose enforcement of those qualifying events, the concern is that insurance carriers are losing millions of dollars due to people who, to put it diplomatically, aren't taking the "spirit" of the ACA's coverage requirements to heart, so to speak.

As I noted at the time and reiterated a week ago, my own solution to this issue (however extensive it may or may not be) was pretty straightforward:

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