Last year, Connecticut was a perfect example of how the initial requested insurance policy rate changes from the companies involved in a given state can end up changing dramatically after the approval process (and in CT's case, change even more when the actual Open Enrollment period actually arrives). The original requested average increas in CT was 12.8%, but the approved changes ended up only being around 4.5%...and in the end they were far lower: Less than a 1% overall weighted average increase!
With that in mind, here's the story on 2016 requested changes in CT:
Four major health care providers that offer plans on Connecticut's health insurance marketplace have filed for rate increases for the upcoming open enrollment period that begins Nov. 1, 2015.
...The following increases have been proposed: 2 percent for ConnectiCare, 6.7 percent for Anthem, 12.4 percent for United Healthcare and 13.96 percent for Healthy CT.
Hartford, Conn. (May 5, 2015) – Access Health CT (AHCT) today announced that they enrolled 1,429 Connecticut residents during the Special Open Enrollment Period which began April 1, 2015 and ended April 30, 2015. The special enrollment period was open to individuals who did not have health care coverage in 2014 and were subject to a penalty on their 2014 federal taxes.
It's important to bear in mind that this number specifically does not include "normal" off-season QHP enrollees via marriage, birth, job loss and so forth.
1,429 over 30 days = about 48 per day. My final estimate of 3,000/day nationally would scale down to just 28/day for Connecticut specifically based on their Open Enrollment Period percentage, so this is actually pretty good.
This is a "mini" update, as it doesn't include the final weekend, but it still means that CT nudged over their internal 100K targetwithout those last 2 crucial days:
As of 2/13, there were 103,007 QHP Enrollees and 433,429 medicaid customers. #AHCTBoDMeeting
The Medicaid number is a bit misleading; I'm almost certain that 433K figure refers to everyone in Medicaid state-wide, not just via ACA expansion. The state only has 3.6 million people total; I find it difficult to believe that 12% of the population falls into the expansion range specifically.
They also threw in the SHOP tally:
Dental plans & the SHOP program continues to show solid gains. Over 1,100 SHOP members enrolled. #AHCTBoDMeeting
Just a few hours ago, Access Health CT issued what seemed to be a fairly solid, hard-line statement about midnight tonight being their open enrollment deadline.
Apparently the moves made by HC.gov, CO, NY, CA, MA, WA & MD (just moments earlier) got to Connecticut...
Connecticut's official 2015 QHP target is an even 100K. They were 99% of the way there as of last night, with no technical problems to speak of gumming up the works:
As of Jan. 30, 95,700 people had signed up for private insurance through Access Health, including about 66,700 repeat customers from 2014. (On Monday, officials said more than 99,000 people had signed up for private insurance plans through the exchange.) By comparison, last year, slightly more than 80,000 people bought insurance through the exchange (though a few thousand dropped out as the year went on).
My own target for CT is 114K. To reach that, they'll have to enroll just 2,100/day for the final week, or less than twice the rate they've averaged so far. This shouldn't be a problem; nationally, I'm expecting QHP enrollments to average around 286K/day all this week, which is around 2.33x more than the average to date, and Connecticut has one of the most solid operations of any state.
This isn't a formal press release, but according to NBC Connecticut, Access Health CT has enrolled "more than 96,000" people into Qualified Health Plans (QHPs). The article ran yesterday, so presumably the number is current as of February 2nd at the latest:
Connecticut residents signing up for health insurance through Access Health CT must enroll by Feb. 15 or face a potential tax penalty from the federal government.
"We're on track to hit our [enrollment] goals," said Access Health CT's acting CEO, Jim Wadleigh.
The state's health care marketplace aims to sign up 100,000 private citizens during the current enrollment period. With less than two weeks left, more than 96,000 residents have signed up for qualifying health plans.
About 30,000 of them are new sign-ups, Wadleigh said, adding that all avenues for enrollment have been successful.
The Access Health CT board of directors is holding a meeting this morning and promises to liveblog the latest developments, including updated enrollment numbers.
Connecticut hasn't updated their numbers since 12/15, when they announced 66K renewals and 19.4K new enrollees, so this should be somewhat interesting.
Remember that today (Jan. 15th) is the deadline for February 1st coverage
ENROLLMENT:
As of last Friday, "around" 90,000 customers (20% higher than last year)
1,500 - 2,000/day...on track to hit/exceed (combined)
last year: 100 - 120K total (includes Medicaid)
midnight tonight: should have over 500K in system (includes Medicaid)
dental: 1K any day now
OPERATIONS:
IRS form 1095 (tax credit form)
education/outreach/etc. programs already in gear
some people already asking questions, etc. re taxes
No formal press release yet, but CT is the 2nd state (after Kentucky) to announce how many 2014 enrollees were automatically renewed (as opposed to manually renewing):
66,000 of our customers were auto enrolled in our system and continue to have health coverage for 2015. #OEUpdate
The most recent update I have from Connecticut was 13,000 new enrollees, but that was only through last Friday, before the big weekend push. That means they added another 7K over the weekend; not bad!
As you can see from the graphic I posted yesterday (and had to revise several times throughout the day), the official enrollment deadline for private policies starting on January 1st, 2015 has now passed for all 37 states operating via HealthCare.Gov, as well as residents of DC, Hawaii and Kentucky. It's certainly possible that any or all of these will announce some sort of "special circumstances" allowance for those who didn't make the midnight cut-off (10pm in Alaska), but I'm assuming those would be done strictly on a case-by-case basis.
OK, so what about the remaining 11 states?
Well, 4 of them (MD, MA, RI & WA) had later deadlines for January coverage all along: Maryland on 12/18 (Thursday) and the other 3 on 12/23 (next Tuesday).
New York and Idaho bumped their deadlines out from yesterday until 12/20 (Saturday), although Idaho had previously claimed that their deadline was 12/23, but are now claiming that it was originally 12/15. I still don't understand what happened there, but so be it: 12/20 it is for ID.
