Connecticut: Uninsured rate cut 50%, 256K total (QHPs + Medicaid combined)

A few days ago, AccessHealthCT (Connecticut's state-run ACA exchange) gave me their exact total enrollments as of 8/02: 250,633. Unfortunately, they were unable to provide a breakout between QHPs and Medicaid/CHIP enrollments. Yesterday the Hartford Courant reported a higher combined total:

Access Health CT, the state-run onlinehealth insurance marketplace created under the federal Affordable Care Act, has enrolled more than 256,000 state residents in private health plans or Medicaid since the website launched last fall.

The open enrollment period total of 218,100 (including everything through 4/19) broke out roughly 36:64. Assuming "more than 256K" is roughly 256,100, that means about 38,000 more people since then. If that ratio has stayed consistent, it should be around 13,700 QHPs and 24,300 Medicaid. However, as I noted the other day, with off season enrollment being limited for QHPs but open-ended for Medicaid/CHIP, the ratio has almost certainly shifted substantially in Medicaid's favor.

For comparison, Minnesota has enrolled 78,000 more people in Medicaid since 4/19, but only 4,742 QHPs as of today, or roughly a 6:94 split.

Oregon, however, has added 28,602 QHPs and 79,287 Medicaid enrollees since then, or a 27:73 split.

IF Connecticut is somewhere in between, at say 18:84, that would be around 6,800 more QHPs and 31,200 more Medicaid/CHIP enrollees, for totals of around 86K and 170K respectively. I'll update this if a hard breakdown is provided.

If 6,800 is about right for the state, it forces me to lower my overall off-season projection from 9,000K/day down to 8,500/day, but I'd rather err on the side of caution here for the moment.

Meanwhile, CT's total uninsured rate has been slashed in half, to just 4%:

CEO Kevin Counihan said at a press conference with the governor Wednesday that the percentage of state residents who lack health coverage dropped from 7.9 percent at the start of the open enrollment period to 4 percent now. About 286,000 residents did not have insurance before the launch of the marketplace, and 147,000 in the state are still without coverage.

UPDATE: OK, CT News Junkie claims to have the exact combined number. They also give a QHP number of 77,712 (subsidized + unsubsidized), but this is confusing since it's given in the context of the net growth in those insured (and over 80K were previously verified as having paid their first premium), so the 77.7K number seems to include attrition as well.

About 77 percent of the growth in the insurance population came from Medicaid expansion. The rest enrolled in one of the three plans offered by private insurance carriers. About 60,847 of those enrolled in private plans receive tax subsidies and about 16,865 do not receive any tax subsidy.

Counihan said it’s the highest amount of unsubsidized growth in the country. He said Washington returned about $287 million in subsidies to Connecticut and the average subsidy is about $4,700, which has significantly increased affordability of the plans being offered on the exchange.

...The goal going into the second year is keep the 256,666 residents who signed up through the exchange insured and to “whittle away at the remaining one to two percent,” he said.

UPDATE x2: D'oh!! I didn't even look at the 2nd graph included in CT News Junkie's story which explains where these numbers come from, which breaks them down as:

• Medicaid: 194,864
• CHIP: 7,685
• "New DSS Enrollments": 22,335 (? DSS = Dept. of Social Services, but I'm not sure what this refers to)
• MINUS Medicaid/CHIP Redeterminations (renewals): - 45,930
• QHPs w/out subsidies: 16,865
• QHPs with subsidies: 60,847

This gives the net total NEW enrollment number of 256,666.

Again, the 2 QHP numbers add up to 77,712, which is not only far less than the 86K that I'm estimating as the gross enrollments, but is several thousand less than the 80,012 which had their first month's payments confirmed several months ago...so this number must also include the drop in enrollment from people moving onto Medicare, Medicaid, Employer-provided insurance and so forth.

If my 86K gross estimate is accurate, then that's a drop of around 9.7% since last spring...or around 2.5% per month since the end of March...which just happens to be right in line with the 2-3%/month attrition estimate which both ACA opponents Chris Conover and Laszewski and I all agree sounds about right. Ironically, if I've lowballed Connecticut's current gross total, that actually means a higher attrition rate (ie, if gross QHP enrollments are actually, say, 88K, that means a drop of around 11.7% since March, or 2.9%/month).