District of Columbia: 1,774 off-season enrollments since June 7

This is a pretty minor 2015 exchange enrollment update, and one of the last ones I'll be doing before the 2016 Open Enrollment period kicks off, but I should squeeze it in:

From October 1, 2013 to September 23, 2015, 166,789 people have enrolled in health insurance coverage through DC Health Link in private insurance or Medicaid:

  •  24,663 people enrolled in a private qualified health plan,
  •  120,739 people have been determined eligible for Medicaid, and
  •  21,387 people enrolled through the DC Health Link small business marketplace (includes Congressional enrollment)

As always, the DC exchange insists on giving cumulative totals since 10/1/13 instead of the 2015-only numbers, which isn't particularly useful. However, by comparing it against their earlier update, I can figure out the difference since then:

From October 1, 2013 to June 7, 2015, 125,478 people have enrolled in health insurance coverage through DC Health Link in private insurance or Medicaid:

  •  22,889 people enrolled in a private qualified health plan,
  •  83,465 people have been determined eligible for Medicaid, and
  •  19,124 people enrolled through the DC Health Link small business marketplace (includes Congressional enrollment)

That means that from 6/8/15 - 9/23/15, the DC exchange has added 1,774 more QHP enrollees, 37,274 Medicaid enrollees and 2,263 more SHOP enrollees.

The Medicaid number looks suspiciously high, but of course normal churn could mean that tens of thousands of those who were previously enrolled in the program have likely moved off of it as well. As I noted a week or so agonet Medicaid enrollment appears to have finally plateaued July (gaining only 30K over June nationally) as the ACA expansion program finally appears to have maxed out.

The SHOP increase is kind of interesting, since most of that is Congressional staffers. Not sure what to make of it.

As for QHPs, 1,774 in 108 days = 16 per day added to the DC tally during the off season, which is actually higher than the 13 per day which they added from 4/07 - 6/07. Not sure what to make of that either.

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