California: CSU uninsured rate drops 60%, Anthem rates up under 10%, 50%+ Previously Uninsured?

Hat Tip To: 
Brian W.

A trifecta of updates out of the LA Times today thanks to contributor Brian W; can you count how many GOP talking points take serious damage below:

New data show the number of students without health insurance on California State University campuses dropped by 60% after Obamacare enrollment, defying concerns that not enough young people would sign up for health insurance.

...During the open enrollment period that ended in April, some officials worried that if not enough young, healthy people signed up for coverage, insurance companies would be left with too many sick and expensive customers, which would eventually cause carriers to raise premiums.

According to a poll released Thursday, at the 15 largest CSU campuses, approximately 30% of students were uninsured before enrollment began, and 10% were uninsured after. The drop accounts for 60,000 students who became insured, and illustrates the late surge of young people who signed up for policies.

Meanwhile...

In the strongest indication yet where Obamacare rates are headed, industry giant Anthem Blue Cross said its California premiums for individual coverage will increase less than 10% on average next year.

...In a speech Thursday at Town Hall Los Angeles, however, Anthem Blue Cross President Mark Morgan said Californians would fare better than that. He said the age and projected medical costs of new enrollees are in line with the company's expectations thus far.

"We will not have double-digit increases in our Covered California operations," Morgan said in his speech. 

This is hugely important, because:

Anthem led the first year of Covered California enrollment with 425,058 people through April 15, or 30% of the exchange market. 

Finally, this is hardly definitive, but as the largest private insurer in the state with 30% of the ACA exchange market, this is strong evidence that at least 50% of California's QHP enrollees were previously uninsured:

[Anthem Blue Cross President Mark] Morgan said Anthem doesn't have any firm numbers yet on how many of its California enrollees were previously uninsured. But he said the initial data point to substantial progress at reaching the uninsured.

"A large majority of the people we see in Covered California we've never seen before," he said, "so directionally that suggests we are getting the previously uninsured."

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