US Chamber of Commerce, which supported ACA repeal bills in 2017, now among those calling for *increasing* ACA subsidies temporarily due to coronavirus crisishttps://t.co/QtxCkKqCqX
Dear Speaker Pelosi, Leader McConnell, Leader McCarthy and Leader Schumer: Thank you for your swift action to help overcome the COVID-19 crisis. Your action is speeding support to hospitals, doctors, nurses, businesses and workers from critical investments in equipment to direct assistance to cover immediate expenses. More must be done, and we stand united in our commitment to work with you and to work together.
Two weeks ago, Covered California reported that 58,000 residents had enrolled in ACA exchange coverage during their COVID-19 Special Enrollment Period, of which roughly 20,000 did so via standard SEPs (losing coverage, moving, getting married/divorced, etc), while an additional 38,000 took advantage of the COVID-specific SEP.
Over the past few days, I've collected and analyzed the daily COVID-19 cases at the county level in Michigan and Wisconsin to see what patterns are emerging as time goes by. I've tried to do this via two criteria: Population density (urban vs. rural) and politically (red vs. blue). The latter, of course, shouldn't even be a thing, but of course it is; pretty much every policy decision being made by the Trump Administration is based on tribal politics, so it'd be naive not to look at the data in that light.
So far, I've found clear and obvious trends in both midwest states, which happen to be two of the three most closely-watched swing states this year: While the urban centers (Detroit/Metro Detroit in Michigan; Milwaukee/Madison in Wisconsin) started out with much higher rates of infection than the rest of the state, over the past few weeks this has shifted dramatically, and appears set to continue to do so.
Since tracking and analyzing data is what I'm best known for...and since I'm mostly stuck sitting in front of the computer all day whether I like it or not these days anyway...I've started my own daily COVID-19 spreadsheet.
Again, I'm not the one who compiled the data itself--many other teams with far better resources than I have are doing that--but I'm pulling their work together and adding some additional context, such as per capita info by state/territory.
Nationally:
5.59 million tests have been completed in the U.S. (1.7% of the population)
23,000 more Americans tested positive today. 1.01 million have tested positive to date.
Yes, that's right: Today the United States of America broke 1 million cases of COVID-19. Hooray for us. Yay team.
Yesterday I had a lengthy post in which I noted that the claims by certain Republicans/"MAGA" types that the COVID-19 pandemic was limited to "blue" areas and "big cities" (wink, wink) is quickly unraveling...at least here in Michigan.
Today, I've run the numbers and put together similar Red/Blue and Urban/Rural breakouts for another extremely closely-watched swing state: Wisconsin.
For Michigan, I was able to separate out the City of Detroit itself from the rest of Wayne County. I also included the wider "Metro Detroit Area", which consists of both Oakland and Macomb County along with the part of Wayne County outside of Detroit.
I'm a lot less familiar with Wisconsin, and they don't break out Milwaukee separately anyway, so I went with Milwaukee County, Dane County (which includes the 2nd largest city in the state, Madison), and the Rest of Wisconsin. Here's what the breakout of COVID-19 cases has looked like over time. Once again, it's really only relevant after the state reached 100 cases:
Well, sure enough, this morning the U.S. Supreme Court issued their ruling, and it wasn't even close:
A big Obamacare decision from SCOTUS this morning: The court rules 8–1 that insurers who lost money under the Risk Corridors program have a right to payment from the government AND damages for unpaid amounts. https://t.co/PjODO35oKe
This was an easy case. Only Justice Alito dissented, complaining that the court mandates "a massive bailout for insurance companies that took a calculated risk and lost." Dude really hates the ACA! https://t.co/PjODO35oKe
Since tracking and analyzing data is what I'm best known for...and since I'm mostly stuck sitting in front of the computer all day whether I like it or not these days anyway...I've started my own daily COVID-19 spreadsheet.
Again, I'm not the one who compiled the data itself--many other teams with far better resources than I have are doing that--but I'm pulling their work together and adding some additional context, such as per capita info by state/territory.
Nationally:
5.44 million tests have been completed in the U.S. (1.6% of the population)
26,500 more Americans tested positive today. 987,000 have tested positive to date (3.0 per thousand)
The U.S. is going to break 1 million positive cases sometime Monday afternoon.
For the past month, I've spent an awful lot of time tracking COVID-19 cases and fatalities on a state-by-state level. I'm obviously not the only one doing this; there's literally dozens of other much more respected and capable organizations and websites doing so, and in fact my data originally comes from several of those sources (primarily Worldometers and the COVID Tracking Project).
I have, however, included a few extra data points which some sites haven't in order to add some perspective:
Since tracking and analyzing data is what I'm best known for...and since I'm mostly stuck sitting in front of the computer all day whether I like it or not these days anyway...I've started my own daily COVID-19 spreadsheet.
Again, I'm not the one who compiled the data itself--many other teams with far better resources than I have are doing that--but I'm pulling their work together and adding some additional context, such as per capita info by state/territory.
Nationally:
5.18 million tests have been completed in the U.S. (1.6% of the population)
35,400 more Americans tested positive today. 960,000 have tested positive to date (2.9 per thousand)
The U.S. is going to break 1 million positive cases sometime Monday.
Since tracking and analyzing data is what I'm best known for...and since I'm mostly stuck sitting in front of the computer all day whether I like it or not these days anyway...I've started my own daily COVID-19 spreadsheet.
Again, I'm not the one who compiled the data itself--many other teams with far better resources than I have are doing that--but I'm pulling their work together and adding some additional context, such as per capita info by state/territory.
Over 16,000 Signed up for Coverage through Washington Healthplanfinder as Impacts of COVID-19 Pandemic Hits Washington Households
Over 16,000 customers selected a plan for qualified health coverage through Washington Healthplanfinder since March 10, when a special enrollment period was announced in response to the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. Additionally, Washington Apple Health (Medicaid) enrollments are increasing.
The special enrollment period allows anyone uninsured and eligible to enroll in health coverage through Washington Healthplanfinder to sign up by May 8, 2020.
Additional existing special enrollment periods allow people who have experienced a recent loss of income or loss of employer coverage to sign up.
Since tracking and analyzing data is what I'm best known for...and since I'm mostly stuck sitting in front of the computer all day whether I like it or not these days anyway...I've started my own daily COVID-19 spreadsheet.
Again, I'm not the one who compiled the data itself--many other teams with far better resources than I have are doing that--but I'm pulling their work together and adding some additional context, such as per capita info by state/territory.
Nationally:
4.66 million tests have been completed in the U.S. (1.4% of the population)
31,500 more Americans tested positive today. 880,000 have tested positive to date (2.65 per thousand)
Another 2,300 Americans died today. Nearly 50,000 have died to date.
The U.S. Case Fatality Rate (CFR) now stands at 5.7%.
The U.S. case count has increased 30% over the past week, and the total U.S. death toll has increased by 44%.
I've been making a LOT of fuss lately about how important it is for CMS Administrator Seema Verma to give the green light to an official "Open" COVID-19 Special Enrollment Period (SEP) via the federal ACA exchange (HealthCare.Gov). Last week I projected that if every state were to offer a full 60-day "open" SEP ("open" means that any uninsured U.S. citizen or eligible documented resident could sign up without requiring a Qualifying Life Event), somewhere between 2.5 - 3.3 million Americans would likely enroll during that 2-month period.
Of that number, I projected that around 1.8 - 2.3 million additional people would likely reside in the 38 states hosted by HealthCare.Gov, with the remainder living in the 12 states which are offering COVID-specific SEPs (although the deadlines in those states vary, and some do require enrollees to jump through at least minimal hoops to enroll).
On April 14th, I noted that Idaho, which had previously refused to join the twelve other state-based ACA exchanges in launching an "open" COVID-19 specific Special Enrollment Period (i.e., open to any uninsured resident regardless of reason) announced that going forward, they were modifying their regular SEP rules somewhat:
...In partnership with the Idaho Department of Insurance and Idaho insurance providers, and in alignment with Governor Little’s initiative to reduce regulations, Your Health Idaho is working to relax the requirements for eligible Idahoans to enroll in coverage.
