Minnesota: 6,500 QHPs added during off-season; Medicaid/MNcare approach 260K

It's time to take a breather from my ongoing 2017 Rate Hike Request project to check in on a couple of off-season enrollment numbers. First up is Minnesota. Here's how the QHP tally (cumulative, not currently effectuated) has gone since open enrollment ended in the Land of 10,000 Lakes (note: Michigan actually has 11,000, so there!):

  • 11/01/15 - 1/31/16: 85,390 QHPs Cumulative since 11/01/15 (or 928/day); 33,333 MNcare; 73,173 Medicaid
  • 2/01/16 - 2/14/16: 85,690 QHPs Cumulative since 11/01/15 (+300, or 21/day); 39,887 MNcare; 90,234 Medicaid
  • 2/15/16 - 3/06/16: 86,856 QHPs Cumulative since 11/01/15 (+1,166 QHPs, or 55/day); 45,621 MNcare; 111,449 Medicaid
  • 3/07/16 - 4/17/16: 90,696 QHPs Cumulative since 11/01/15 (+3,840, or 91/day); 55,357 MNcare; 156,983 Medicaid

...and here's the May report:

After a brief mini-surge in April, SEP QHP enrollments have dropped back down to a normal off-season rate. Medicaid and MinnesotaCare enrollments, however, continue to ramp up since there's no cut-off date for those programs.

One other important item to note: In the last bar graph below, you can see that effectuated QHPs as of the end of April stood at 73,268 people...down 14.2% from the official OE3 QHP selection total. This is actually right about where it should be considering that last year, national effectuated QHPs were down 13% as of the end of March.

Other oddball items:

  • Medica has stolen away about 1/3 of Blue Cross Blue Shield's market share, but the other 3 carriers are relatively untouched.
  • MN's 18-34 demographic has actually dropped from 25% to 20% year over year, which isn't good.
  • Platinum plans have either disappeared entirely from MNsure, or at least no one is enrolling in them if they're there.
  • The green pie charts below are a reminder that there are a lot more people who enroll in Medicaid via other means besides the exchanges; in addition to the 195K reported by MNsure, there are another 650K in Minnesota enrolled in the program.
  • The average (full price) premium has gone down slightly (from $391 to $383/month) since the beginning of the year.

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