So, that brings their total up to 91,430 as of...um...well, "the last week alone" suggests 7 days, which would mean either 1/07 - 1/13 or 1/09 - 1/15 (which would leave a 2-day gap). Fortunately, they then followed up with this:
Two months of open enrollment down & more than 125,000 Kentuckians have newly enrolled 4 health coverage or renewed their plans thru #kynect
Wow! This was unexpected; while several other states have provided enrollment updates today, and some have broken out (or at least included) both new enrollments as well as manual renewals/re-enrollments, Kentucky is the first one to include automatic renewals as well!
Webb is one of 101,114 Kentuckians who have newly enrolled or re-enrolled in Obamacare health plans during the first 30 days of open enrollment through the state's health insurance exchange, kynect. State numbers released late Tuesday afternoon show that 16,139 residents met eligibility requirements for Medicaid, 9,215 newly enrolled in qualified health plans and 75,760 auto-renewed last year's private kynect health plans since re-enrollment began Nov. 15.
Ah, here we go...the 2nd official update from Kynect (Kentucky's Obamacare exchange, for certain U.S. Senators who can't seem to admit that little detail).
15,140 QHPs in 24 days is around 631 per day...or about a 50% higher daily average so far than they had in 2014 (and that included the December and March Surges).
Meanwhile, they've also added an additional 10,017 people to Medicaid. They don't specify whether all of those are brand new (the vast majority of KY's Medicaid-eligible folks should already be enrolled by now) or if some of them are renewals by existing enrollees, however:
4,107 individuals have newly enrolled or renewed their enrollment in a qualified health plan.
735 individuals have enrolled in Medicaid
First, that QHP number is excellent.
As for the Medicaid number, it looks rather low. On the other hand, KY has probably already enrolled just about everyone in the state who qualifies for the ACA expansion program, so perhaps not...there may just not be that many more to add at this point!
On the other hand, according to their Twitter feed....
During #kynect's 2nd Open Enrollment, 4k+new accounts created; 15k+ applications submitted; over 4k enrolled in QHPs & 16k+ in Medicaid.
More state exchange numbers are starting to trickle in...
The state Cabinet for Health and Human Services said in a release that as of 4 p.m. Saturday, there had been 6,200 unique visitors to the Kynect Web site; 2,415 calls handled by the Kynect contact center; 504 applications submitted; and 368 individuals who had newly enrolled in a qualified health plan.
In addition, 70 visitors to the Kynect store at Fayette Mall in Lexington had completed 33 applications for new coverage.
The "newly enrolled" is important as well, to distinguish it from current enrollees renewing their policies. Hopefully all of the exchanges will be sure to clarify this, but...
The numbers ranged from as poor as Florida losing 12% of their enrollments in just 2 months to as well as Maryland and Oregon seeing a 30%+ net increase in enrollees over the past 6 months.
Today I can add Kentucky to the latter list. She couldn't provide an exact current count, but according to the woman I spoke with at the kynect exchange (that's "Obamacare", Mitch!), the number of Kentuckians currently enrolled in private policies via kynect is "right around the same number it was at last spring, between 80-85 thousand".
Last week I announced that I've started writing occasional pieces for HealthInsurance.org. Today they've published my 2nd entry, which is all about Kentucky, Mitch McConnell and the real-world impact on hundreds of thousands of people that repealing the ACA would have.
UPDATE:In my story, I noted that the Federal Government is picking up 100% of the tab for the expanded Medicaid enrollees for the first 3 years, and then thought that it dropped down to 90% for another 6 years, and then to the normal fed/state split after that (70/30 in the case of Kentucky).
Thanks to David M. for bringing to my attention this correction: The expansion program is an even better deal for the states than I thought, because apparently the Federal share only drops to 90% permanently (well, unless a future Congress messes around with that provision of the ACA, of course).
