For those who assume Cover Oregon will go away when the federal government takes overthe state exchange's job of enrolling people in health coverage, think again.
Even as Oregon works on hooking up to the federal website by November, some Cover Oregon board members hope the engagement with Uncle Sam will be only a one-year affair.
I found one quote in particular to be a bit of an eyebrow-raiser:
But the idea is controversial on both sides of the political aisle in Salem.
"Hell, no," says Sen. Brian Boquist, R-Dallas. He thinks Oregon should leave the job to the federal exchange and Cover Oregon as a stand-alone agency should go away. "Cover Oregon, the whole structure is bad from beginning to end. I don't trust the federal government. But I do trust the federal government more than I do the state of Oregon."
I've been too busy with my day job (I do have one, you know...) to post much lately, but plenty of ACA-related news has piled up, so I'm clearing off my desk with some quick bits:
First in a series of profiles about KY women in charge of the state exchange:
Energy exudes from Carrie Banahan when she talks about her work with others to bring affordable health care to more than half a million Kentuckians.
“I worked all my life to see this happen, that we can provide affordable health insurance to people, and it has actually happened,” she said. “I am thrilled that we are actually helping people in Kentucky. It is the highlight of my career.”
Banahan is executive director of the Kentucky Health Benefits Exchange, which the state has branded as Kynect, partly to avoid identification with the pejorative nickname Obamacare. She shares the credit for its success.
Hmmm...another unusual slowdown for Oregon; total QHPs are only up 873 since 7/28, and net QHPs are actually down 63, presumably due to purging of unpaid enrollments and cancellations of existing policies. Medicaid enrollments, meanwhile, are up another 499.
August 6, 2014
Update: Private coverage and Oregon Health Plan enrollment through Cover Oregon
Medical enrollments through Cover Oregon: 337,518 Total private medical insurance enrollments through Cover Oregon: 96,910
Oregon Health Plan enrollments through Cover Oregon: 240,608
Dental enrollments
Total private dental insurance enrollments through CoverOregon: 19,489
Net enrollments Net private medical: 82,305
Net private dental: 15,605
Oregon is, I believe, the 5th state to release their approved ACA exchange premium rates for 2015, after Rhode Island, Connecticut, California and Mississippi. Like most of the others, it's a mixed bag, with some companies raising their rates by up to 10% but others reducing theirs by as much as 20% (or even 26% for the small group market, although that's not the one that I'm primarily looking at).
About 80,000 Moda Health members who buy their own insurance will see their monthly premiums climb an average 10.6 percent next year, while many other insurers are dropping their rates to compete.
Insurance rate decisions were issued by the Oregon Insurance Division Thursday and announced today, showing a tighter range of premiums in the individual market for people not covered by employers or Medicare.
Moda's once market-leading rates have jumped to middle of the pack. For a silver plan, a 40-year old in Portland can find four insurers with lower premiums approved by the state.
Oregon continues to post impressive enrollment numbers considering their never-working website. Total QHPs are up another 922, Net QHPs are up 185 and Medicaid enrollments are up 12,517 over the past week:
July 28, 2014
Update: Private coverage and Oregon Health Plan enrollment through Cover Oregon
Medical enrollments through Cover Oregon: 336,146 Total private medical insurance enrollments through Cover Oregon: 96,037
Oregon Health Plan enrollments through Cover Oregon: 240,109
Dental enrollments
Total private dental insurance enrollments through CoverOregon 1: 18,794
Net enrollments Net private medical: 82,368
Net private dental: 15,218
...After taking political heat for the exchange's technological failure, the appointees of Gov. John Kitzhaber are taking on a more significant role, transforming the agency for the future. At a time when critics of the agency say it should go away, it's the bureaucratic equivalent of an existential moment for an agency considered crucial to federal health reforms.
... The state's planned 2015 partnership with the federal exchange is called a "supported state-based" exchange. But it's supposed to be a temporary fix before setting up a full-fledged state-based exchange. It allows Oregon to keep insurer fees of about 2.5 percent of premiums for itself until the state resurrects its own website.
VERY interesting news out of Oregon. On the one hand, the gross QHP enrollment figure, which had been cut in half from 300/day down to 156/day is back up to over 200/day, right in line with the rebounds from Hawaii and Minnesota!
On the other hand, unlike last week when the net enrollment figure dropped from 280/day down to a measely 10 in an entire week, the number today is actually lower than it was a week ago!
July 14 NET enrollments: 82,637; July 21 NET enrollments: 82,183...a drop of 454 people.
July 21, 2014
Update: Private coverage and Oregon Health Plan enrollment through Cover Oregon
Medical enrollments through Cover Oregon: 322,707 Total private medical insurance enrollments through Cover Oregon 1: 95,115 Oregon Health Plan enrollments through Cover Oregon: 227,592
Hmmm...OK, first it was Hawaii with the QHP total actually going down from 6/28 through 7/05. Then Minnesota reported a huge drop-off in their off-season enrollment rate, from about 52 per day from April through the end of June to just 2 per day for the first 13 days of July.
Now we have Oregon's latest update. While the total QHP figure has grown by 1,092 over the past week, the paid QHP number has only gone up by...10. That's right: Just 10 in the past week, or just over 1 person per day...down from over 300 per day in the off season until now.
(As an aside, new Medicaid enrollments are also slowing down, with just another 290 people being added to the program).
Oregon continues to rack up impressive QHP numbers, although their daily average is definitely slowing down as we move farther from their "extended-extension period". Even so, their net enrollments are still up another 1,258 since 6/24, while Medicaid enrollment has gone up just 1,221. My suspicion for the Medicaid enrollment drop-off (also noted by contributor deaconblues) is that they've simply run out of Medicaid-eligible people in the state...which makes sense seeing how they've added 355K people to the program since January (227K via the exchange + another 128K via their "fast track" program), when the Kaiser Family Foundation estimated that there were only 260,000 uninsured people even eligible for Medicaid to begin with!
There's a TON of amazing news out of Oregon today, but I only had room for the most stunning one in the title above. Trust me, this is chock full 'o goodness:
For all the hits Oregon has taken over their website, they continue to calmly, quietly, manually add more and more people to their exchange rolls:
Medical enrollments through Cover Oregon: 315,825
Total private medical insurance enrollments through Cover Oregon 1: 89,744
Oregon Health Plan enrollments through Cover Oregon: 226,081
Net private medical: 81,369
Net private dental: 15,461
This is a net increase of another 1,029 QHPs and another 14,151 Medicaid enrollees since June 12...or up 21,436 QHPs since the end of Open Enrollment on 4/19 (330 per day on average).
It's worth remembering that Oregon started the year with only about 559,000 uninsured people in the entire state. Add in the 128,434 "Fast Track" Medicaid enrollees and you have a whopping 444,000 people covered one way or the other.
