OE6

New York State of Health, NY's ACA exchange, posted their final statewide 2019 Open Enrollment Period numbers a few weeks back.

A few days ago, they broke that data out further, providing county-level granular data as well:

Press Release: NY State of Health Announces 2019 Enrollment Increases in All Counties of New York State
Feb 22, 2019

HealthSource RI enrollments up by nearly 2,000 customers as RI’s uninsured rate reaches all-time low

Feb 25, 2019

  • According to the latest Rhode Island’s Health Information Survey, only 3.7% of Rhode Islanders were uninsured in 2018, down from 4.2% in 2016.
  • HealthSource RI’s individual and family enrollments increased by 1,849. This Open Enrollment, 32,486 customers enrolled and paid compared to 30,637 last year.

The "...and paid" caveat is important. Last month HealthSource RI reported 34,533 QHP selections after the 2019 OEP wrapped up, so that's an impressive 94% paid/effectuated rate. For comparison, last year 30,637 paid out of 33,021, or 92.8%, so they've improved on that front as well.

Back in mid-January, Connect for Health Colorado released their semi-final 2019 Open Enrollment Period report:

By the close of this year’s Open Enrollment, Coloradans had selected 169,672 medical insurance plans, which compares to 165,777 medical plan selections for the 2018 Open Enrollment period.

Hmmm...I'll have to look into these numbers a bit further. Colorado's 2018 Open Enrollment total was indeed 165,777 according to C4HCO...but according to CMS's official report it was only 161,764 QHP selections. This is the same thing which happened last year, when C4HCO reported 172,361 QHPs vs. CMS's 161,568. It's therefore possible that the final/official 2019 CMS report will put Colorado's total around 4,000 enrollees lower than my own numbers.

However, either way, Colorado joins Massachusetts in increasing their ACA open enrollment numbers every year for five years straight, bucking the national trend!

Back in early December, I noted that while I applauded both New Jersey and the District of Columbia for creating their own individual healthcare coverage responsibility requirements (aka, The Individual Mandate) in response to Congressional Republicans repealing the ACA's federal penalty, doing so also required making sure that residents of NJ/DC *knew* they had done so:

There's only one problem with this: The impact of the mandate penalty is completely psychological in nature. It only works (to the extent that it does at all) if people know that they'll be penalized financially for not complying with the mandate.

Two weeks ago, I posted a semi-final state-by-state 2019 Open Enrollment Period breakout which had the total at 11,430,438 QHP selections nationally.

At the time, I projected:

I still expect the final national QHP selection tally to increase by around 35,000 more when the dust settles, including perhaps 1,000 more from DC, 5K - 10K more from New York and around 28,000 from Vermont (which hasn't reported anything so far this Open Enrollment Period). If so, the official total should end up around 11.47 million nationally, with the 12 State-Based exchanges coming in around 1.6% higher than last year (an all-time high for them collectively) vs. the 39 states on the federal exchange, which dropped another 3.8% this year. Nationally, the official total should end up around 280,000 enrollees short of last year.

Since then I've plugged in the final numbers from New York (which indeed added around 6,700 more enrollees), the District of Columbia (which added over 3,000 more) and, just this morning, Vermont (which only added 25,000 more, with a caveat). Net increase? 34,889 QHP selections.

That indeed brings the grand total to 11,465,327 QHP selections nationally...or 11.47 million...with the state-based exchanges increasing 1.6% year over year, and the national total dropping 285,000 enrollees.

UPDATE: The final, official CMS enrollment report came out in late April, and there's some minor discrepancies in a few states (especially Minnesota). Nationally, the official total is around 22,000 fewer than I thought. The table below has been updated to reflect this. The state-based exchanges still increased enrollment over last year, but only by 0.9%; nationally, enrollment dropped by 306,000 people.

At long last, the final piece of the puzzle can be added: I just received the final 2019 Open Enrollment Period numbers from Vermont Health Connect.

Before looking at it, it's important to understand that Vermont has a unique way of reporting ACA-compliant healthcare policy enrollments.

For the first two years of Open Enrollment, the state didn't allow any off-exchange (or "direct") enrollments for the individual market (or the small business market, I believe). That means all indy market enrollments were done through the exchange. Due to technical problems (and possibly for other reasons as well), however, starting in 2016 they started allowing direct/off-exchange enrollment as well, as every other state does (the District of Columbia is the only other ACA exchange which has no off-exchange market). However, Vermont still requires the insurance carriers to report those off-exchange enrollees to them and they report them as well.

I wish every state reported their enrollment data this way; it would make it much easier for me to do my job, since as it stands the off-exchange market is a bit of a mystery in most states.

Until now, I've been missing the final 2019 Open Enrollment Period numbers for two state-based exchanges: Vermont and the District of Columbia. VT is still radio silent, but last night the DC exchange authority held their monthly meeting and released their latest data report.

There's a bunch of handy demographic data included in the report...but some of it is also confusing and difficult to get an accurate year-over-year measurement due to a difference of time periods and enrollment status.

I've put in a request to sort some of this out and will update this entry if/when I receive clarification.

For instance, the DC exchange says that they have the following number of residents currently effectuated as of February 10th:

This just in via NY-based Politico healthcare reporter Dan Goldberg...

@charles_gaba final tally from NY: QHP 271,873; EP 790,152; 22% enrollees were new and 78% re-enrolled for a QHP. Number were 12%, 88% for EP

— Dan Goldberg (@DanCGoldberg) February 4, 2019

This is 6,664 QHP selections higher than the 1/29 tally, or slightly more than the 5,000 I expected NY to tack on for the final two days of Open Enrollment. New York wrapped things up with an impressive 7.4% increase in QHP enrollees over last year and a 6.9% increase in Essential Plan (BHP) enrollment.

UPDATE: Here's the official press release with a few more details:

The Minnesota ACA exchange, MNsure, wrapped up their 2019 Open Enrollment Period on January 13th, and recently released three big reports chock full of wonky healthcare data nerd goodness. I'm mostly going to just repost some of the key graphs/charts, but make sure to read the full reports for all the details:

The annual report is mostly full of inside baseball administrative info, but the first two reports have lots of stuff of interest to the average reader of this site:

First up, their January board meeting slideshow:

This Just In from DC Health Link...

DC Health Link Extends 2019 Open Enrollment Deadline to Wednesday, Feb. 6

Washington, DC­­ – DC residents will have an additional six days to sign up for 2019 health insurance coverage through DC Health Link.  The new deadline to sign up is 11:59pm on Wednesday, February 6.  Individuals who sign up by that deadline will have coverage beginning March 1, 2019.

DC Health Link customer service representatives will be available today at (855) 532-5465 from 8:00am to 8:00pm and on Monday, February 4th through Wednesday, February 6th to work with individuals seeking to enroll in health insurance coverage effective March 1. In-person assistance will also be available at enrollment centers throughout the District to assist residents with the enrollment process through February 6th.

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