Yes, I know I just updated Minnesota 2 days ago, and no, the latest numbers aren't terribly significant increases, but given that MN is the only state which has been consistently updating their data almost daily, with a nice simple breakout between QHPs, Medicaid and MinnesotaCare (a sort of quasi-Medicaid/QHP hybrid allowed for by the ACA), I figured I owed it to them to provide an update which matches their numbers up precisely with Day 365...exactly 1 year to the day since the exchanges launched last October:
enrollment update
latest enrollment numbers
September 30, 2014
Health Coverage Type Cumulative Enrollments
Medical Assistance 214,071
MinnesotaCare 75,013
Qualified Health Plan (QHP) 55,148
TOTAL 344,232
QHPs are up another 183, Medicaid 5,242 and MinnesotaCare (which is a little bit like high-end Medicaid, from what I can tell) is up another 1,160 over the past 7 days:
latest enrollment numbers
September 28, 2014
Health Coverage Type Cumulative Enrollments
Medical Assistance 212,331
MinnesotaCare 74,609
Qualified Health Plan (QHP) 55,001
TOTAL 341,941
One of last week's big ACA stories was the news that the largest insurance company on Minnesota's exchange, PreferredOne, was dropping out of MNsure.
ACA critics pounced all over this news as Yet More Proof That Obamacare Is Failing®, even though pretty much every "proof" they've presented to date has turned out to be nonsense or, at best, vastly exaggerated (never mind, either, the fact that overall, 77 new insurers are joining the ACA exchanges while only 15 are dropping out, for a net gain of 62 companies nationally).
Minnesota's QHP numbers continue to quietly rise slowly despite the news last week that the MNsure's largest participant, PreferredOne, is pulling out of the exchange for year two. Meanwhile, their Medicaid number is up another 6,541, and MinnesotaCare (which isn't actually Medicaid proper, but is sort of a quasi-Medicaid-like program allowed for & funded by the Affordable Care Act) is up 1,489.
I've generally sort of lumped Medicaid and MinnesotaCare together, but it's worth noting that the successful addition of 73.4K people to MinnesotaCare is one of the main reasons for PreferredOne pulling out of the exchange in the first place.
latest enrollment numbers
September 21, 2014
Health Coverage Type Cumulative Enrollments
Medical Assistance 207,089
MinnesotaCare 73,449
Qualified Health Plan (QHP) 54,818
TOTAL 335,356
Ouch. While most states are seeing their list of insurance providers increasing this year, in a few cases some are dropping out...and in the case of Minnesota, it's the one with 59% of current enrollees:
The insurer with the lowest rates and most customers on Minnesota's health care exchange is pulling out.
Golden Valley-based PreferredOne this morning confirmed its exit from MNsure. It comes as a major blow to the exchange — the next open enrollment period starts Nov. 15 and runs through Feb. 15.
MNsure officials said the online insurance exchange would reach out soon to PreferredOne customers who bought coverage through MNsure last year with information on next steps.
They said consumers still have at least four, well-known, Minnesota-based carriers "who are committed to providing important health coverage" to everyone, including people who qualify for tax credits and public programs.
...According to a company statement, MNsure policies make up only a small percentage of PreferredOne's entire enrollment but take up a significant amount of resources to support.
If it seems like I keep posting Minnesota's latest every few days, that's because...well, frankly, I am, for two reasons: First, they're updating it every few days (almost odometer-like); and second, MNsure is pretty much the only one posting updates on a regular basis (again, Oregon is now the only one doing so more frequently than once a month).
On the up side, those MN numbers keep increasing at a pretty impressive rate, with another 294 QHPs added and 5,848 more added to Medicaid/CHIP in just the past 6 days:
latest enrollment numbers
September 2, 2014
Health Coverage Type Total Enrollments
Medical Assistance 191,568
MinnesotaCare 69,671 Qualified Health Plan (QHP) 54,354 TOTAL 315,593
For some perspective, this means that Minnesota's total ACA exchange enrollments have gone up over 5.1% in just the past 12 days.
The Good News: Minnesota, as always, continues to provide consistent, up-to-date enrollment data, adding 56 QHPs over a 3 day period:
latest enrollment numbers
August 24, 2014
Health Coverage Type Total Enrollments
Medical Assistance 183,503
MinnesotaCare 67,054
Qualified Health Plan (QHP) 53,866
TOTAL 304,423
The Bad News: Up until recently I was only receiving regular upates from 3 states (plus monthly updates from Maryland and random, occasional updates from various other states). For the past few weeks, however, even 2 of those 3 states (Hawaii and Oregon) have seemingly gone radio silent as well. Aside from the next monthly MD update (due sometime this week, I believe), that leaves Minnesota as the sole state keeping their data up to date.
Meanwhile, Minnesota's exchange Medicaid total has now broken the 250K mark and stands at 250,557.
