That would put the national final QHP total at somewhere between 12.9 - 13.2 million people nationally as of January 31st, 2022; call it around 13.1 million.
...I completely forgot to mention BASIC HEALTH PLAN (BHP) enrollment in New York and Minnesota. It totalled 975,337 people during the 2021 OEP (883,451 in New York, 91,886 in Minnesota)...I'm willing to bet total BHP enrollment across both states will end up perhaps 10% higher year over year, which would put it at around 1.1 million.
When you add that to my QHP projection above, you get a grand total of perhaps 14.1 million QHPs + BHPs combined.
If this projection had proven accurate, it would have meant total ACA exchange enrollment was up ~9 - 10% year over year, which would have been impressive but not stellar.
Now that we have two weeks worth of 2022 Open Enrollment data under our belt (well...for 33 states, anyway), I thought this would be a good time for me to try and put together a spitball estimate of how many Americans are likely to enroll in ACA exchange coverage during the 2022 Open Enrollment Period (OEP).
There's really two main numbers to try and project: How many current enrollees will renew/re-enroll for 2022 (whether actively or automatically); and how many new enrollees will jump into the ACA exchanges?
For each of these, due to how the data is reported, I have to further break the states out between those using the federal ACA exchange (HealthCare.Gov) and those which operate their own state-based ACA exchanges (Covered California, NY State of Health, etc.) This is further complicated by the fact that three states (Kentucky, Maine and New Mexico) switched from the federal exchange to their own state-based exchange starting with the 2022 OEP.
As longtime readers know, every summer/fall I run analyses of the annual premium rate change filings for both the individual and small group health insurance markets for all 50 states +DC. However, I tend to put most of my focus on the individual market, since that tends to have a lot more interest and activity surrounding it.
The individual market has been rocked by both economic and policy changes from year to year (in both good and bad ways) far more than the small group market, which hasn't been in the news nearly as much. You tend to read a lot of stories about the Individual Market (both ACA-compliant as well as so-called "junk plans" like Short Term, Sharing Ministries, Farm Bureau and the like), and of course the Large Group market is massive (something like 40% of the U.S. population), so even minor changes to that are big news...but the Small Group market (which generally includes companies with 50 or fewer full-time employees, though a few states include companies with 100 or fewer) tends to get short shrift in both the news as well as healthcare wonkery.
Biden-Harris Administration Extends Hundreds of Millions of Dollars to New York’s Essential Plan, its Basic Health Program, Key Connection to Coverage Supported by American Rescue Plan
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) is providing approximately $750 million in additional funding in 2022 to support the Essential Plan, New York’s Basic Health Program (BHP), as well as added funds for 2020 and 2021. The additional funds, made available through the American Rescue Plan, increase New York’s ability to provide health care coverage to approximately 1 million individuals.
Biden-Harris Administration Extends Millions in Funding to Minnesota for MinnesotaCare, its Basic Health Program, Key Connection to Coverage Supported by American Rescue Plan
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) is providing approximately $100 million in additional funding in 2022 to support MinnesotaCare, Minnesota’s Basic Health Program (BHP), as well as added funds for 2020 and 2021. The additional funds, made available through the American Rescue Plan, increase Minnesota’s ability to provide affordable, quality health care coverage to approximately 100,000 individuals.
Well, as the long-gestating legislation finally heads into the endgame this week, there's been a last-minute rush to add to & change some provisions of the bill before it actually gets voted on, and earlier today, the House Rules Committee released a revised/updated version of the bill, including a handy comparison version which shows exactly what legislative language has changed since the prior version.
Many of these changes are either simple grammatical or wording tweaks to make sure it all passes legal muster, while others simply provide clarification. Other changes involve simply increasing or decreasing the amount of federal money which would be allocated to one program or another.
WHAT: Open enrollment begins today on NevadaHealthLink.com, the online health insurance marketplace operated by the state agency, the Silver State Health Insurance Exchange (Exchange), that connects Nevadans to quality, affordable health and dental plans. For this Plan Year 2022, Nevadans can shop 126 qualified health plans. All plans are designed to fit each individual’s budget and health needs.
Monday, November 1st was the start of the official 2022 #ACA Open Enrollment Period (OEP) for anyone who needs quality, affordable healthcare coverage. The 2022 OEP is by far the best ever for the ACA coverage, with dramatically expanded financial help for millions more people (including many who weren't eligible last year), reinvigorated expert, unbiased assistance, more choices in many states and counties, and FREE policies for more people than ever before.
If you've never enrolled in an ACA healthcare policy before, or if you looked into it years ago but weren't impressed, please give it another shot now. Thanks to the American Rescue Plan (ARP), it's a whole different ballgame.
Here's some important things to know when you #GetCovered for 2022:
1. RESIDENTS OF MOST STATES HAVE MORE TIME, BUT YOU STILL SHOULDN'T DELAY!
UPDATE 11/19/21: The revised Build Back Better Act passed the House of Representatives this morning, so I'm re-upping this for a few days. It now moves to the Senate where it will likely be tinkered with a bit more; if it passes there, it will then move back to the House for one more final vote before hopefully being signed into law by President Biden. Make sure to also read about some additional revisions to the bill made after I wrote this post.
The legislative text of the updated Build Back Better (BBB) bill is now available, and as I suspected, for all the understandable disappointment about what isn't part of it any longer, there's a lot more healthcare-related stuff in there than most people think. A lot of it gets kind of wonky or may seem like "small potatoes" to most folks, but pretty much everything in it would make a huge positive impact on those it benefits.
A couple of hours ago, the Biden White House posted a completely updated version of what's being described as a "framework" for his Build Back Better policy agenda, which has been significantly pared down from the more ambitious version last spring. There are three main reasons for this: Congressional/Senate Republicans as a whole; Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia; and Senator Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona.
There's still no way of knowing whether or not this version of Biden's #BBB agenda will pass either, but assuming it does, here's what will make the final cut:
