Minnesota: Off-Season QHPs drop off again; Medicaid/MNcare up another 36K

My posts have been pretty light of late; between being on vacation, a big work backlog when I got back, and getting wrapped up in the RNC and DNC craziness, I've been a bit off-track. I'm hoping to catch up a bit over the next week or so.

Case in point: Last week, the Minnesota exchange, MNsure, posted their latest monthly enrollment numbers. Normally they include a full slideshow dashboard report, but I can't find it for July. The basic numbers through July 20, however, are:

• Medical Assistance: 244,736
• MinnesotaCare: 72,972
• Qualified Health Plan (including SHOP): 96,923
• TOTAL: 414,631

As of 6/12, MNsure had 95,637 QHP selections, so this is an additional 1,286, or 34/day over the past 38 days. This is down substantially from the June report, when it averaged a whopping 179/day.

For the entire off-season period, MNsure has added 11,533 QHP selections, or an average of 68 per day. Extrapolated out nationally, that would be about 10,300 per day nationally, although in prior years off-season SEPs have averaged between 7,000 - 9,000 per day.

Earlier this year, after a bunch of fuss over the claims that many people are "gaming" the SEP system, CMS announced various verification requirements for those enrolling off-season; the expectation was that these measures would reduce the number of SEP enrollments nationally. While the Minnesota numbers make it sound like this isn't the case, remember that the CMS measures only apply to the federal exchange; I don't believe they affect the state-based exchanges like MNsure, so I haven't a clue whether they're having any impact or not.

Meanwhile, the combined MinnesotaCare (BHP) and Medical Assistance (Medicaid) numbers are up over 36,000 from where they were on June 12.