This may seem a bit anticlimactic after this morning's Healthcare.Gov news, but it actually just serves to underscore how great the 2015 open enrollment period is doing so far:
Again, assuming roughly 50% of all QHP determinations are already resulting in plan selections the same day (which was consistent for at least the first 8 days), this means that total QHP selections should be roughly: 16,186 + 3,770 + 15,562 = 35,518 x 0.5 = 17,759. Lop off a couple hundred to err on the side of caution and Massachusetts should have roughly 17,500 or more QHPs selected already.
Once again: In 2014 they only hit 32K total in 6.5 months.
Meanwhile, ACA Medicaid can claim credit for nearly 31,000 more people being added to the tally.
Yesterday I posted the MA Health Connector's first weekly dashboard report, in which they confirmed that yes, almost precisely 50% of all QHP determinations are consistently resulting in actual QHP enrollments on that same day. This held true on opening weekend (52%...3,600 out of 6,972) and held firm at 50% even in the first 8 days (14,101 out of 28,175), so I'm now pretty confident that it will stay at least at 50% daily going forward (obviously it should increase as we approach 12/15, which is fine).
Having said that, I can now add two more days to the tally...11/23 & 11/24:
So, that's 14,101 confirmed through 11/22. Add to that 50% of the Monday & Tuesday numbers (4,330 total) and you get an additional 2,165, or 16,266 QHP enrollments total.
OK, it might be slightly lower than 50% even, but certainly above 16K.
This is awesome. Remember how last week I was assuming that roughly 50% of those determined eligible for QHP enrollments likely had already gone ahead and done so each day? At the end of the week I pulled back from this and went with a more cautious 1/3.
Well, it turns out I had it right in the first place: Massachusetts is about to announce 14,101 QHPs actually selected as of Saturday, out of 28,175 determinations (essentially 50% on the nose)!
In addition, they're already up to 23,792 MassHealth (Medicaid) enrollments, which is also excellent.
(link provided soon...it's not even on their website yet!)
For context, Massachusetts is enrolling people in private policies eleven times faster than they did last year...and that includes the December & late March surges.
Put another way, in just 8 days MA has already enrolled about 44% as many people as they did in 200 days last time around.
To recap: In the initial few days of 2015 #OE2, Massachusetts' actual QHP enrollments averaged about 52% of the total "determined eligible" number. The first official weekly report (with "selected plan" QHPs) will be released Monday, so for the moment I'm going with that ratio daily. With that in mind, it looks like MA may have broken the 10,000 milestone in just the first 5 days!
That's 19,957 "determined eligible" for QHPs. Assuming 52% have already selected plans, that's a total of over 10,300 to date.
Again, for comparison sake, last time around MA only 31,695 people were able to enroll. If my 10.3K figure proves accurate, that's 2,060 per day, compared with just 158/day for 2014...or 13x the rate.
Massachusetts is making up for last year's disaster in spades so far.
In addition, check out the confirmed Medicaid (MassHealth) tally: 16,292 people already.
As I noted yesterday, the good news is that Massachusetts is posting daily metric reports on the new ACA Health Connector exchange, a level of frequency which surpasses even Minnesota.
The (mildly irritating) news is that with all of that data being served up daily, the main number that concerns me here at ACASignups--the "number who've selected a plan"--will only be included weekly, every Monday.
Still, until then I can at least get a rough idea. The most recent official press release stated that 3,600 QHPs had been enrolled in out of 6,972 people "determined eligible" for them, or 52% of the total. This number will bounce around from day to day, no doubt, but it's a reasonable starting point to use until Monday.
So, assuming 52% of "determined eligibles" are consistently actually enrolling in policies, today's dashboard report suggests that the number for the first 4 days has reached over 8,400 out of 16,293 total:
I was geeked beyond measure when I was told that the all-new Massachusetts Health Connector would be posting daily enrollment reports. Until now, the only state doing this was Minnesota, and they only started doing so (I think) after the end of the first open enrollment period (or close to it).
Sure enough, they've already posted two "dashboard reports" with metrics showing how many Bay Staters had been determined eligible for Medicaid ("MassHealth") as well as the different types of Qualified Health Plans (QHPs), which are broken out into those paying full price, those receiving tax credits (APTC) and those qualifying for "ConnectorCare" which seems to be some sort of special Massachusetts-specific program which is somewhere between the Arkansas "Private Medicaid Option" and Minnesota's "MinnesotaCare" Basic Healthcare Program...except that the "ConnectorCare" enrollees are still categorized as "QHPs" for enrollment purposes.
The reports give daily tallies of how many accounts are created and how many applications are submitted, along with call volume, website traffic and forth.
(Technically speaking Massachusetts' eventual QHP total ended up being around 34,000, but with attrition/etc. it has likely fallen back down to around 32K by now anyway, so that's still a pretty fair comparison).
From the Press Release:
NEARLY 12,000 INDIVIDUALS & FAMILIES SUCESSFULLY DETERMINED ELIGIBLE FOR ACA HEALTH INSURANCE VIA MAHEALTHCONNECTOR.ORG
I just posted about the first official enrollment numbers coming in from Day One of the 2015 Open Enrollment Period, with small but symbolically important numbers from Vermont and Massachusetts.
I also noted the following passage from today's Boston Globe story about it:
As of 6:30 p.m., 5,967 people had used the Connector website (MAhealthconnector.org) to find out what type of plan they were eligible for.
Of them 2,660 enrolled in MassHealth, the state’s Medicaid program, according to Haberlin, who is senior adviser to Maydad Cohen, the governor’s special assistant for project delivery.
The remaining 3,307 learned they were eligible to shop for a private health insurance. Of those, 1,704 selected a plan and 60 paid online (which is not required until Dec. 23).
So, you have 1,704 actually enrolling ("selecting a plan"), of which--GASP!!--only 60 have paid!!
OK, the numbers are small, but it's a start--and the fact that both are being released by states which had horrible technical issues last year is quite telling:
Vermont Health Connect processed 50 new applications and 201 renewals by Saturday at 1 p.m. The exchange was working well with some isolated minor issues in the morning that were quickly resolved, he said.
MASSACHUSETTS: 1,704 in first day:
#ACA coverage update: 2,660 enrolled in @MassHealth; 3,307 eligible for @HealthConnector coverage with 1,704 plans selected. Total: 5,967
