For the past couple of weeks I've been compiling the county-level data across various states for just how many people are at risk of losing healthcare coverage if the Republican Party actually does follow through with repealing the Affordable Care Act. The main numbers are the subsidized QHP enrollees and the Medicaid Expansion enrollees.
What people really want, though, given the politics of the situation, are these numbers by Congressional District. Unfortunately, I can't provide that, which is why I'm going with County level data for now.
As I've noted before, until today, there was one state which I had no OE4 data for whatsoever: Vermont (which is ironic given their historic support of healthcare reform, including Sen. Bernie Sanders). This blank has been filled in by today's supplemental CMS/ASPE report: 29,021 QHP selections as of 12/24, which is actually quite a bit higher than I expected for the state (my target for VT is only 30,000 total through 1/31).
As regular readers know, I've always made sure to report the number of people who enroll in the ACA's Basic Health Plan (BHP) programs in Minnesota (since 2014) and New York (since 2016). The HHS Dept. didn't really highlight BHP numbers in 2014 or 2015 because they weren't even a rounding error nationally (they had 43,000 enrolled in BHPs via MNsure in April 2014, for instance). In addition, the BHP program in Minnesota was really just a retooling/expansion of an existing program anyway. As a result, it was treated as more of a footnote in the national reports. Interestingly, the number of MN residents enrolling in BHPs through MNsure this year is quite a bit lower (20,000), although state-wide the number is much higher (around 62,000 as of this week). Basically, 1/3 of MinnesotaCare enrollees are doing so via the ACA exchange, the rest via traditional state agencies/processes.
Don't get excited yet. This isn't remotely settled yet, and even if the GOP backs off now, there's no reason to think they won't be back in full force a few months down the road.
GOP Senators Propose Delay On O'Care Repeal To Work Out Replacement
After publicly airing some of their grievances with the GOP's current strategy of repealing Obamacare without a replacement plan, a handful of Republican senators put their concerns in legislative writing. Five senators on Monday evening introduced a measure that would delay the next steps on repealing the Affordable Care Act by more than a month. The senators, in their statements accompanying the provision, said the delay would buy Congress more time to work out of the the details of a replacement.
Minnesota is a different story. They started out Open Enrollment with a bang, racking up enrollees at up to 12x last year's pace...but that was mainly due to their unique "enrollment cap" policy this year. Once the caps were filled and current enrollees were all squared away, new enrollments appear to have dropped off dramatically. They're now dead last percent-of-target wise (again, I can't include NY or VT here since neither has enough data available).
It feels a little odd to be alternating estimates about how many people could lose their coverage in each state with the number signing up for it at the same time, but that's where we are: Remember, there's still 6 more days for people to enroll for 2017 coverage starting in February, and 16 days after that to sign up for coverage starting in March.
Connect for Health Colorado Reports Increase in Healthcare Plan Selections for 2017 Coverage
DENVER — More than 158,000 Coloradans selected healthcare coverage for 2017 through the state health insurance Marketplace through Sunday, January 8, a rate 18 percent ahead of signups one year ago, according to new data released today by Connect for Health Colorado®.
The typical agreement a QHP issuer enters into if selling on the FFM requires them to keep the policy in force for the entire calendar year. [This exit clause] gives them option to term the policy abruptly if the Courts rule, or a Trump administration decides, that it won't pay CSR offset payments to carriers. Because this won't hit the Supreme Court until late 17 or early 18, I think this is as much about assuaging carriers fears of a Trump admin trying to destroy the marketplaces as anything else.
OK, it's really important to note that a) this is a very simplified rendering of the true situation and b) this only applies to two populations: The individual market (around 20 million people) and the medicaid expansion population (around 14 million, plus another 2.6 million being denied thanks to 19 states refusing to expand it). In other words, it has nothing to do with the large group market, small group market, Medicare, the VA/TriCare, federal/state/local public employees and so on. This chart only applies to around 37 million people in the U.S. Got it?
Having said that, what I've tried to do is to provide a visual representation of, among that population, who the ACA is working well for, who it isn't working so well for, and who can legitimately complain about feeling screwed by it:
Oops. Last week I reported that Access Health CT appeared to state that they had a total of 114,421 QHP selections during the current open enrollment period. The wording was slightly squirrelly ("currently active for 2016 and/or 2017"), especially since I also knew there were around 12,000 existing enrollees who still hadn't chosen a new policy...but an earlier update had given the number as "around 113,000" in a seemingly less-confusing way, so I assumed that all 114,421 applied to 2017.
