OLYMPIA, Wash. – Washington Healthplanfinder today announced that 170,101 Washingtonians have currently signed up for a Qualified Health Plan or renewed their health coverage through www.wahealthplanfinder.org. Of the total number of Qualified Health Plan enrollees, more than 16,000 enrolled during the spring special enrollment period.
The spring special enrollment period, which ran from Feb. 17 to April 17, was previously available to Washingtonians who recently became aware of the tax penalty for not having health insurance or were unable to complete their applications due to technical issues by the Feb. 15 deadline.
In the midst of a pretty quiet week data-wise, the Washingotn HealthPlanFinder had a pleasant surprise: An extremely comprehensive enrollment report which breaks down their 2015 numbers every which way possible and, of particular importance to me, also includes data up through March 9th (as opposed to the Feb. 21st cut-off of most of the other state exchanges).
As an additional bonus, the accompanying press release also brings the QHP enrollment numbers even further up to date...right up through March 25th, I think (the PR doesn't specify the exact date of that number, but it's a few thousand higher than the enrollment report so I'm assuming it includes the 16 extra days).
Now that the King v. Burwell Supreme Court oral arguments are out of the way (with radio silence expected until they announce the decision sometime in June) , the next Big Development to keep an eye on ACA-wise is...Tax Season! There will be plenty of stories about how many people have to pay back some/all of their 2014 tax credits, how many will receive additional tax credits...and, most germane to this site, how many additional people enroll via the exchanges to avoid having to pay (most) of the higher tax penalty next year for not being covered in 2015 during the Tax Filing Season Special Enrollment Period (SEP), or #ACATaxTime as I prefer to call it.
This is about as minor of an update as I can post; the actual hard enrollment number is slightly lower than the 160K figure that I already had, but it's still good to have specific data, plus it's broken out into more detail. Plus, the SHOP data is here as well (such as it is):
Open Enrollment Numbers (All Numbers Effective as of February 15, 2015)
An hour ago I wrote about the WA HealthplanFinder re-launching a special Tax Season enrollment period which effectively just extends the enrollment period out by an extra 2 months. However, the press release wasn't posted openly on their site.
This is the first year residents who are filing their 2014 federal taxes may incur a penalty through the IRS on their tax return if they failed to have health insurance for more than three consecutive months in 2014. Given that some residents may become aware of the penalty for the first time this year, Washington Healthplanfinder will open a Special Enrollment Period for these individuals so they can get coverage and avoid the penalty for not having coverage in 2015. These individuals as well as those who were unable to meet the Feb. 15 deadline can apply for the Spring 2015 Special Enrollment Period.
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.
As I noted last week, Washington State is doing things a bit backwards from just about every other state...instead of reporting the total number of QHP selections and then, in a few cases, also reporting the number of enrollees who have actually paid their first premium, the WA HealthBenefit Exchange is only reporting enrollments after they've made their first payment.
On the one hand, I wish every state was reporting this number. On the other hand, unlike MA & VT (which report both numbers) or Rhode Island (which is reporting both, but only including the total selections after subtracting those who are past-due on their payments), WA isn't including the total selections at all. This makes things a bit tricky for me, since I'm trying to report both numbers.
As a result, what I'm doing for the moment is assuming the standard 88% payment rate, which means that today's announcement of 139,000 QHP enrollmentsshould mean roughly 158,000 total selections:
Yesterday I lamented the fact that the Washington State ACA exchange seemed to be seriously lagging behind just about every other state in terms of achieving their 2015 QHP selection target, with only 132K QHPs to date vs. the 215K that they were hoping to reach this year (not to mention my personal target of 250K, which turns out to have been way out of line).
I figured that they're on track to only end up with perhaps 180-190K by 2/15, coming up 25K - 35K short of their goal.
However, IBD's Jed Graham (who has been on fire lately; this is the 2nd important point he's brought to my attention this week) reminded me that last year, unlike every other state except Massachusetts, Washington only reported paid enrollments, not total plan selections. If that's true this year as well, he noted, then I've been missing roughly 12% of WA's total all along (put another way, I should be plugging that 132K number into the paid column, not the total column).
The Washington State ACA exchange released updated 2015 enrollment numbers today, broken out by county, current through January 31st. They've even broken each county out between renewals from 2014 and new additions for 2015. The grand totals?
