During the 2014 Open Enrollment Period, the federal exchange at Healthcare.Gov enrolled 68% of the 8.02 million total through April 19th. However, it didn't start out that way; 68% was the cumulative percentage. Due to the severe technical problems at HC.gov (along with some of the state exchanges), during the first month, the federal site only made up 25% of the total. As technical problems were worked out, this ratio shifted dramatically as follows:
October: 25% Federal, 75% State-based
November: 43% Federal, 57% State-based
December: 59% Federal, 41% State-based
January: 65% Federal, 35% State-based
February: 72% Federal, 35% State-based
March/April: 75% Federal, 25% State-based
As you can see, once HC.gov worked the bugs out, it took off bigtime, and was enrolling 75% of the total by the time the Big Surge came at the end.
Health industry officials say ObamaCare-related premiums will double in some parts of the country, countering claims recently made by the administration.
The expected rate hikes will be announced in the coming months amid an intense election year, when control of the Senate is up for grabs. The sticker shock would likely bolster the GOP’s prospects in November and hamper ObamaCare insurance enrollment efforts in 2015.
...The insurance official, who hails from a populous swing state, said his company expects to triple its rates next year on the ObamaCare exchange.
Because Ed Lyons is the same guy who wrote The Health Connector Autopsy Report, which documented everything that went wrong with the MA ACA exchange project, from before the beginning until after the end. I mean, everything.
All 31,000 words of it.
It's difficult to get across just how in-depth, comprehensive or well-researched/documented that report is. It's also important to understand that a) to the best of my knowledge, like myself, Mr. Lyons didn't do it for money or for fun; it was something of an obsession for him. It should also be noted that Mr. Lyons is a Republican.
Lots of people have spent today saying stuff like this:
OK, the numbers have barely moved, and technically this update is missing 3 days (it only runs through 11/11 instead of 11/14), but MNsure has been the only exchange, federal or state, which has provided an almost odometer-like frequency of off-exchange updates.
Yes, of course it's blank. As you can see, I'm doing things a bit differently this time around: I'm presenting the full enrollment period all at once (doable since it's only 3 months instead of 6), and I'm including the official "targets" from HHS, CBO and myself on the right side.
Underneath, just for posterity, I've posted the final version of the 2014 Graph.
55% of Americans who currently lack insurance say they plan to sign up for coverage while 35% of the uninsured say they will not get insurance and instead pay the fine as required by the Affordable Care Act, also known as "Obamacare."
Regular readers know that the current QHP enrollment tally for the ACA, which started at around 7.1 million on May 1st (around 900K of the 8.02 million who enrolled through 4/19 never paid their first month's premium), gradually increased over the summer to a peak of around 7.3 million as of August 15th before dropping back again into autumn...right back down to around 7.1 million again as of October 15th.
At the time, ACA critics Megan McArdle and Bob Laszewski were speculating that there would likely be a substantial drop-off after the August peak due to the "3 month grace period" factor: That is, under the ACA, insurance companies aren't allowed to kick people off of their policies for non-payment of their premiums until after that payment is at least 3 months past-due. Their reasoning was that a whole bunch of people had enrolled in the spring, made a single payment but then blew it off for the rest of the summer, mooching 4 months worth of healthcare coverage for the price of one before getting kicked to the curb.
I thought it was an interesting theory which would have at least explained why the 7.3M figure was abruptly given out after months of radio silence from HHS. All year I've only found a single data point about the "3 month grace period" item: Arkansas, which reported only having 2.1% of their enrollees in that status a month or so ago. Still, 2.1% out of 7.3 million is 146,000 people, so it could have been substantial.
