Hmmmmm...not sure what to make of this update out of KUNM in New Mexico. NM only had 18,691 exchange QHPs as of 3/15, so 51.4K would be absolutely insane (a 2.75x increase). It looks like they've mixed the SHOP enrollees into the mix, which means it's not quite that crazy--take those out and the QHPs are down to 37,400, or a "mere" doubling of the existing total. So...I guess that makes sense.
HOWEVER, this causes bigger questions, because the only data I've had for New Mexico's SHOP exchange was a mere 524 as of March 18th. How the hell did they manage to enroll 28 times as many people in the next 13 days???
The number is given in a negative context, but NM is up to 18,691 from 15,012 as of March 1st...263/day, up nearly 2.2x from February's 121/day:
As of March 15, 18,691 New Mexico residents had enrolled in the exchange, Ezekiel said. After already adjusting enrollment expectations for 2014 downward from 83,000 to 50,000 because of problems with the federalhealthcare.gov portal, the state is struggling to reach its target.
Not exactly a huge spike, but a person covered is a person covered...
As of March 18, 524 people had enrolled in health plans through the New Mexico small business, or SHOP exchange, according to figures from NMHIX. That includes 345 employees and 179 dependents.
This is a much bigger deal than it might appear to be. The title is a bit misleading; NM's Medicaid tally hasn't suddenly shot up 10x overnight, it's just that until now, I've only had New Mexico's ACA-enabled expansion number pegged at around 14,400 (10,300 Strict Expansion, 4,100 Woodworkers) because NM mixes together new enrollees with renewals (redeterminations) when they report the data to CMS. This means I couldn't use any of the CMS data (witness the red bar on the NM section of the Medicaid spreadsheet).
Today, I can replace both numbers with this one; the article is pretty damned clear that all 103K are specifically due to the expansion provision alone, but I'm willing to concede that perhaps 10% of it might be "woodworkers". Thereferore, "woodworkers" goes up to 10,300 while "strict expansion" increases to 92,700:
UPDATE: On the down side, I was off by 4% this time around.
On the up side, I UNDERESTIMATED:
Actual Feb. enrollments: 942,833, for a total of 4,242,325 thru 3/01/14.
Sarah Kliff at Vox just announced that the February HHS report is expected to be released today at around 4:00pm. A few items in anticipation of that:
As I've noted several times, I'm projecting the report to total around 902,000 exchange-based private QHP enrollments for the month of February (technically 2/02 - 3/01)
If accurate, this would bring the cumulative total of exchange-based private QHP enrollments to 4.202 million (from 10/1/13 - 3/01/14)
From the data I have, the average daily enrollment rate in February was almost identical to that of January, which had about 1.146 million QHP enrollments. HOWEVER, the January report included five weeks of data (12/28 - 2/01), while the February report will only include four weeks (2/02 - 3/01). Therefore, even at the same daily average, it'll be about 20% lower no matter what.
Don't be surprised if Peter Lee of CoveredCA decides to steal some thunder by announcing that California has enrolled 1,000,000 QHPs all by itself either today or tomorrow. However, that would include the past 10 days, while the HHS number will only run thru 3/01.
If you want to get REALLY specific, call it 902,800 and 4,202,292.
I've been dead-on target 6 times in a row without hyping up my projections beforehand. This time I am hyping myself up beforehand, so I'll probably be way off...but as long as I've UNDERestimated the tally, I'll be perfectly fine with that...
The report will be released in about 5 minutes, but my kid gets home from school in about 10, so it'll be a good 20 minutes before I can really post anything. Feel free to follow Sarah Kliff of Vox in the meantime!
OK, looks like I misunderstood the wording of the prior update; while 422 is actually a slight increase, I thought that the prior 395 didn't include dependents; apparently it did. Therefore, the tally actually drops from 711 down to 422. Sorry about the error.
As of Feb. 2, 4,319 employees are in the system, but only 273 have enrolled in health plans. Combined with their dependents, a total of 422 people have selected health plans on the SHOP exchange.
The first number is only slightly higher than last week, but at the time I didn't know if that referred to employees only or their families as well. This article is more specific, so using Covered California's very conservative 1.8x factor for dependents, the actual number of people covered by the SHOP exchange comes to about 711.
As of Jan. 28, 1,612 New Mexico employers had signed up to buy insurance on the SHOP for their employees. A total of 395 employees and their dependents have selected plans on the SHOP.
In addition, as the submitter noted, the numbers aren't huge but the 1,612 employers signing up is extremely promising.
Meanwhile, I've been informed that Washington State only has their SHOP program running in 2 counties, while Maryland's won't be operational until April (SHOP enrollments are open year-round, while individual/family enrollments are only available through 3/31).
As of Jan. 15, 368 people had purchased insurance through New Mexico’s SHOP (Small Business Health Options Program) exchange for small businesses.
...So far, 370 people have enrolled in insurance plans on the SHOP exchange, according to the NMHIX. A total of 1,542 employers have set up accounts on the exchange and they represent 3,962 employees.
Mississippi:Private up to 2,000 from 802(h/t Steve Mullinax, aka rsmpdx)
Transcript from Jeffrey Hess of Mississippi Public Radio, NPR Audio:
Only two insurance companies are offering plans in Mississippi, and they only overlap in four of the state’s 82 counties. However, those two companies appear to be betting that the web site problems and skepticism about the exchange in general are passing. One of the two companies, Humana, launched a late-December ad campaign to drive more people to the site, says spokesman Mitch Lubitz. “There’s been a ramp-up as the HealthCare.gov web site has gotten easier to use and there have been other options for people to go on and get information and enroll.” Mississipi’s Insurance Commissioner Mike Chaney says the improvements to the enrollment process are good, but he’s still skeptical they’ll be able to get enough people signed up this year. “From zero to ten, I’d give it a confidence level of about a three.” Hess: “That’s still not very good.” Chaney: “That’s not, but it’s better than where I was, a one, a week before last. “Chaney says the unofficial count is around two thousand people enrolled, but he says if the confidence trend continues upward, his confidence will rise to a five.”
The number is given in a negative context, but NM is up to 18,691 from 15,012 as of March 1st...263/day, up nearly 2.2x from February's 121/day:
