A Quiet Week at ACASignups.net, but some tidbits...

Wed, 12/18/2013 - 2:18pm

NOTE: This was originally posted over at Daily Kos. I've since ported it over here for archival purposes.

UPDATE: Literally seconds after I posted this, some new numbers have come in from Kentucky and Connecticut that bump things up a bit more...

After a ton of new data last week, it seems that the state agencies have decided to put more focus on actually enrolling people and processing their forms than issuing their numbers. This is a polite way of saying that ACASignups.net is at a bit of a standstill at the moment, not because the enrollments aren't happening (if anything, they should be through the roof right now through next week), but because the numbers are just not being released as easily.

Case in point: California just issued a press release with their latest statistics, which are very impressive...except that they don't include the most important numbers that we're looking for: Updated actual enrollment figures.

They also make it sound like they won't be releasing any further actual enrollment numbers until January which would suck (although the wording is a bit squirrelly on that).

Now, some projection can be done--they do state a 25% increase in total completed applications in the week from 12/8 - 12/14, from 551,776 to 689,477, so I could posit that the total enrollments also increased by at least 40,000 (from 159K to 199K).

The only problems with doing so are:

a) It's sloppy and speculative, completely defeating the whole point of the spreadsheet and opening it up to criticism about the numbers; and

b) Ironically, I would almost certainly be LOWBALLING the actual number by doing so. CoveredCA did release individual daily numbers for 12/9 and 12/10...31,000 enrollments. At 15.5K per day, that means the 2nd week of December is far more likely to be along the lines of 108,000 than 40,000. But, again, until they release those figures...(sigh).

Having said that, there ARE some more interesting tidbits to note while we wait:

--Arkansas' weird/special "Private Option Medicaid" program enrollees have jumped from 62,000 to 81,000. One could actually argue that these belong under "Private Enrollments" but the way this program works makes it very difficult to justify, so I'm playing it safe and just giving them an "orange special" cell under Medicaid/SCHIP.

--Connecticut continues to kick ass, and is now at over 60%71% of their CBO projected enrollment figure! I could easily see them tripling the 33K target by 3/31/14.

--Likewise, New York and Vermont are at or ahead of their enrollment numbers given how far along we are in the 6-month period

--Oregon FINALLY produced some solid enrollment numbers, but given how messed up they've been, this could change

--Maryland and Delaware continue to crawl along.

--The head of Minnesota's exchange just resigned, partly due to technical problems but mostly because she stupidly took a Costa Rica vacation over Thanksgiving.

--On the plus side, here's positive news: The "missing 834" headache appears to have finally been resolved just in time for the 12/23 deadline, as problems with the data transfer files have dropped down to less than half a percent.

--As noted the other day, the Spanish-language version of Healthcare.gov has launched, which should help.

--And finally, on a personal level, I'm VERY pleased and relieved to say that BCBS Michigan has CONFIRMED OUR ENROLLMENT and we just RECEIVED OUR NEW CARDS in the mail today!

The latest tally as of this afternoon stands at: