Connecticut

Access Health CT, Connecticut's state-based ACA exchange, has updated their enrollment summary and now reports 102,049 residents have selected policies for 2021, including 15,310 new enrollees.

Last year they had a total of 107,833 QHP selections during Open Enrollment, which they're just 5.4% away from breaking.

In addition, as noted a few days ago, they're also extending their deadline by a full month (whcih they also did last year):

via Access Health CT:

Access Health CT Extends 2021 Annual Open Enrollment Period As A Result Of Current Health Crisis

CT residents can shop and enroll in health insurance coverage until January 15, 2021

It's turned into an annual tradition: The official annual ACA Open Enrollment Period (OEP) runs from November 1st - December 15th, but most of the state-based ACA exchanges have later deadlines. hThen, right around the 12/15 point, it begins: One by one, some of the state-based exchanges announce further extensions of their deadlines to #GetCovered for the upcoming year.

In some cases they simply bump out the deadline for coverage starting in January, with the final "hard" deadline for February or March coverage staying where it is. In other cases they were never allowing Open Enrollment start dates past January to begin with, so it's the hard deadline which is being extended.

In any event, here's this year's batch of announcements; note that this list could grow longer over the next week or two:

via Access Health CT:

Access Health CT Extends 2021 Annual Open Enrollment Period As A Result Of Current Health Crisis

CT residents can shop and enroll in health insurance coverage until January 15, 2021

  • Access Health CT extended the 2021 Annual Open Enrollment period until January 15, 2021 as a result of the current health crisis, providing more time for CT residents to get covered.
  • If individuals choose a plan during the extension, the coverage will start on February 1, 2021.
  • If customers are already covered by an insurance plan through Access Health CT for January 2021 and would like to pick a new plan starting in February 2021, they must first pay their January monthly bill (premium).

HARTFORD, Conn. (December 16, 2020)—Access Health CT (AHCT) today announced an extension for the 2021 Annual Open Enrollment period until January 15, 2021 as a result of the current health crisis, providing more time for CT residents to get covered.

Access Health CT, Connecticut's ACA exchange, is posting updates to their Open Enrollment Period (OEP) numbers every Friday. Last week they reported 91,965 Qualified Health Plan (QHP) selections during the first 34 days of the 2021 OEP, which sounds more impressive than it is, since most of those were current enrollees having their auto-renewals front-loaded; only 7,500 of them were actually new enrollees. Nothing wrong with that, of course.

This week, they report that they have 95,230 total QHP selections, of which 9,959 are new.

I'm pretty sure the reason for the discrepancy is that, like some other state-based exchanges, AccessHealthCT front-loads auto-renewals of all of their current enrollees, then allows them to actively go in and manually cancel their renewals. So, if they have 100K enrolled this year, they'd plug all of them in for 2021, then wait and see how many choose not to stay enrolled for 2021.

Access Health CT, Connecticut's ACA exchange, is posting updates to their Open Enrollment Period (OEP) numbers every Friday. Last week they reported 100,345 Qualified Health Plan (QHP) selections during the first 33 days of the 2021 OEP, which sounds more impressive than it is, since 94,713 of those were current enrollees having their auto-renewals front-loaded; only 5,632 of them were actually new enrollees. Nothing wrong with that, of course.

This week, they report that they have just 91,965 total QHP selections, of which 7,474 are new.

On the surface this makes no sense...this is around 8,400 fewer than last week!

Access Health CT, Connecticut's ACA exchange, is posting updates to their Open Enrollment Period (OEP) numbers every Friday. Last week they reported 100,094 Qualified Health Plan (QHP) selections during the first 20 days of the 2021 OEP, which sounds more impressive than it is, since 95,857 of those were current enrollees having their auto-renewals front-loaded; only 4,237 of them were actually new enrollees. Nothing wrong with that, of course.

This week, they report that they have 100,345 total QHP selections, of which 5,632 are new. On the surface this sounds off...shouldn't it be 101,489 total? I'm pretty sure the reason for the discrepancy is that not every current enrollee actually renews/re-enrolls for the following year. The exchange plugs them in as renewing, but they can still go in and actively cancel their renewal, which reduces the total a bit. In this case, it sounds like 1,144 current enrollees have done so over the past week. This gives a net increase of 251 over the past week, or 36 per day.

Access Health CT, Connecticut's ACA exchange, is posting updates to their Open Enrollment Period (OEP) numbers every Friday. Last week they reported 99,952 Qualified Health Plan (QHP) selections during the first 13 days of the 2021 OEP, which sounds more impressive than it is, since 97,256 of those were current enrollees having their auto-renewals front-loaded; only 2,696 of them are actually new enrollees. Nothing wrong with that, of course.

This week, they report that they have 100,094 total QHP selections, of which 4,237 are new. On the surface this sounds off...shouldn't it be 101,493 total? I'm pretty sure the reason for the discrepancy is that not every current enrollee actually renews/re-enrolls for the following year. The exchange plugs them in as renewing, but they can still go in and actively cancel their renewal, which reduces the total a bit. In this case, it sounds like 1,399 current enrollees have done so over the past week. This gives a net increase of 142 over the past week, or 20 per day.

Access Health CT, Connecticut's ACA exchange, is posting updates to their Open Enrollment Period (OEP) numbers every Friday. Last week they reported 99,406 Qualified Health Plan (QHP) selections during the first 6 days of the 2021 OEP, which sounds more impressive than it is, since 98,127 of those are current enrollees having their auto-renewals front-loaded; only 1,279 of them are actually new enrollees. Nothing wrong with that, of course.

This week, they report that they have 99,952 total QHP selections, of which 2,696 are new. On the surface this sounds off...shouldn't it be 100,823 total? I'm pretty sure the reason for the discrepancy is that not every current enrollee actually renews/re-enrolls for the following year. The exchange plugs them in as renewing, but they can still go in and actively cancel their renewal, which reduces the total a bit. In this case, it sounds like 871 current enrollees have done so over the past week. This gives a net increase of 546 over the past week, or 78 per day.

Last Friday, Access Health CT, Connecticut's state-based ACA exchange, posted their first 2021 Open Enrollment Period data numbers, and the first QHP enrollment number looks pretty eye-popping at first glance: 99,406 Nutmeggers enrolled in the first 6 days! Wow! Only around 108,000 enrolled throughout the entire 2020 OEP, so that's pretty impressive...

...except that I'm pretty sure that  99% of this figure consists of automatic renewals of their existing exchange enrollees. The next number down, 1,279, is their "2021 OE Acquisition Summary" number. In other words, it looks like Access Health CT has 98,127 people currently enrolled in exchange plans who have been auto-renewed for 2021, plus another 1,279 new enrollees who actually signed up in the first six days.

Back in July, the Connecticut Insurance Dept. posted the preliminary 2021 rate filings for the individual and small group market carriers. On average, they were seeking rate increases of 6.3% for the individual market and 11.3% for the small group market.

Today, the CT DOI issued their final rate change rulings, and the difference are pretty dramatic:

Insurance Commissioner Issues Decisions For 2021 Health Insurance Rates

Insurance Commissioner Andrew N. Mais today announced the Department has made final decisions on health insurance rate filings for the 2021 coverage year. As a result of these decisions, approximately 214,600 Connecticut consumers are projected to save $96 million.

The Department approved an average increase for individual plans of 0.01 percent, down from the average request of 6.29 percent. The average increase for small group plans is 4.1 percent, down from the requested average of just over 11.28 percent.

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