Washington State: 216,000 QHPs w/2 days to go...

From a last-minute press release:

The Washington Health Benefit Exchange is alerting customers that tomorrow, Jan. 31 is the deadline to sign up for 2017 health and dental coverage through Washington Healthplanfinder.

Individuals and families have until 11:59 p.m. tomorrow to select a plan that is good for the remainder of the year. Residents who fail to secure coverage by the deadline could be required to wait until the following year to sign up for health and dental coverage.

  • Extended Customer Support Center Hours: Individuals can call the toll-free Customer Support Center at 1-855-WAFINDER (1-855-923-4633) to find answers to questions related to the application process. The Customer Support Center is open until 10 p.m. tonight and will host extended hours again tomorrow from 8 a.m. through the 11:59 p.m. deadline.
  • Online Tools: Resources available through wahealthplanfinder.org allow customers to compare plans by insurance company, out-of-pocket maximums, metal levels, and estimated premium cost. Additional help is available at www.wahbexchange.org, where customers can find answers to frequently asked questions and get to know the basics of getting covered.
  • In-Person Help: From Seattle to Spokane, free sign-up events are being held now throughout the state to connect customers with in-person help. The Exchange’s eventscalendar includes a complete list of places where residents can get signed up for coverage both today and tomorrow.

More than 216,000 residents have used Washington Healthplanfinder to sign up for 2017 health coverage during the first 12 weeks of the open enrollment period, a 15 percent increase in plan selections over the same point in open enrollment last year.

This is likely the last official enrollment update I'll have before the final numbers are released by the various exchanges, including everything up through the 1/31 deadline.

As a reminder, I cannot guarantee that accurate final data--or, for that matter, any final data--will be released from the federal exchange (HC.gov) which covers 39 states. The last official enrollment update I had for HC.gov was 8,825,545 QHP selections through January 14th. I expect that the final HC.gov tally will come in at around 9.5 million, but who the hell knows?

Washington State's tally is 7.7% higher than it was as of January 9th, for whatever that's worth.

 

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