I've confirmed that Rhode Island's weather-induced enrollment extension is indeed state-wide and is of the "full" variety (ie, people can start the application process, not just finish it), through February 23rd. This is exactly the same policy that the Massachusetts exchange announced the other day.
And so, the Open Enrollment Period extensions are officially underway. I was expecting underperforming states like Washington and Minnesota to be the first out of the gate, but instead, the first three states to make formal announcements are California, Massachusetts and now, New York:
California: Yesterday, CoveredCA announced a 5-day "Waiting in Line" extension policy (ie, as long as you've started the enrollment process as of midnight on Sunday 2/15, you'll have until Friday, 2/20 to complete the process.
Massachusetts: Just a few hours ago, the MA Health Connector announced that due to getting slammed with 3 massive snowstorms in the past few weeks, as well as a 4th major one sweeping in right now, they're bumping out the full enrollment period (ie, no "have to be in line already" caveat) by a full 8 days, until February 23rd.
And just this moment, the New York State of Health has announced that like California, they're going the "Waiting in Line" route: Anyone who starts the process by midnight Sunday will have until February 28th to actually select a plan and check out. It's important to note that NY residents who enroll between 2/16 - 2/28 won't have their policy kick in until April 1st, however.
Huge enrollment news day--this is unexpected but welcome on top of the HC.gov report:
Press Release: Governor Cuomo Announces NY State of Health Hits Benchmark of Two Million Enrollees
Governor Andrew M. Cuomo today announced that the New York State of Health (NYSOH) Marketplace has enrolled more than two million New Yorkers in affordable health insurance coverage. This is the latest record enrollment for New York’s health exchange, and 89 percent of enrollees have reported that they had no coverage at the time they joined the Marketplace. New Yorkers who have enrolled in coverage through the Marketplace have overwhelmingly reported that they are satisfied with their health insurance (92 percent) and are using their coverage to access care (84 percent).
Latest enrollment breakdown:
· Total cumulative enrollment: 2,004,827 · Total Medicaid enrollment: 1,491,859
· Total private coverage: 512,968
· Total new 2015 enrollment: 429,972
· Total new 2015 Medicaid enrollment: 297,423
· Total new private coverage: 132,549
· Renewal rate in private coverage: 85 percent
Yesterday, Peter Lee of Covered California held a phone press conference in which he gave out updated data for new QHP enrollments (bringing the total up to over 217K), but refused to give out any numbers whatsoever when it comes to renewals / re-enrollments of 2014 enrollees...whether these were done actively by the enrollee or automatically by the system.
Just now, I've learned that the other major state exchange missing data--New York State of Health--has apparently stated that not only are they not giving out their renewal/re-enrollment data either, they aren't even going to give out any new updates until February 1st:
The 980K confirmed by the 14 assorted state-run exchanges,
The unreported renewals (both active and automatic) from California & New York, and
Another roughly 150,000 scattered amongst all 50 states & DC since the date of their most recent updates until today (which varies from as little as 1 day to as much as 25 days in the case of Idaho).
If you do the math, you'll see that the biggest missing piece here is the 3rd item above: Covered California and New York State of Health have, to date, still refused to give out any re-enrollment/renewal data for 2014 QHP enrollees. Not just autorenewal numbers, but active renewals as well.
When we last checked in on New York State, they had added a total of 195,000 new people since November 15th in addition to those already enrolled for 2014. This broke out to around 126.6K added to Medicaid and 68.4K set up for 2015 private policies.
NY's enrollment deadline for January QHP coverage ended on Saturday, and they've just come out with an updated total. Again, this does not include renewals of current enrollees:
NY up to 225,244, enrollment, not counting renewals @charles_gaba hopefully medicaid /qhp breakdown soon
Again, no breakout yet; that usually shows up within an hour or so of the initial total, based on Dan Goldberg's past scoops. Assuming it's roughly a 65/35 split like the prior total was, that should mean roughly 79,000 private policies and 146,000 Medicaid/CHIP.
I'll update this with more details as they come out...
A quick reminder: If you live in Idaho or New York, today is the deadline to enroll in a private healthcare policy if you want coverage starting on January 1st, 2015.
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.
Unfortunately no breakout between the two yet...hopefully soon...I also don't know what date that number runs through, nor do I know if the QHP tally includes new enrollments only (a la California & Connecticut) or if it also includes renewals as well.
Also, we now have our first official Deadline Extension due to the massive snowstorm in Buffalo/etc recently:
@charles_gaba State also says deadline to enroll for jan. extended to Dec. 20 b/c of "extreme weather"
