Charles Gaba's blog

This morning, the Twitter account NewsWire_US, which claims to be a "U.S. and world news aggregator," posted an amazing-looking graph which purports to break out "Obamacare applications by state for 2025" by states which voted for Donald Trump vs. those which voted for Kamala Harris last month.

Here's the graph, which includes no further context (including any data sources...NewsWire claims it came from Reuters but I can't find the original link to a story by them with this graph) beyond making it look like a whopping 82% of ACA enrollees live in Trump states:

Update: Here's the original Reuters article, which was actually published on Dec. 11th, which at least explains why it only includes data through Nov. 16th/9th, anyway.

Update: Newsweek has run with the ball on this story without actually looking at the data properly as well.

It was in early 2021 that Congressional Democrats passed & President Biden signed the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA), which among other things dramatically expanded & enhanced the original premium subsidy formula of the Affordable Care Act, finally bringing the financial aid sliding income scale up to the level it should have been in the first place over a decade earlier.

In addition to beefing up the subsidies along the entire 100 - 400% Federal Poverty Level (FPL) income scale, the ARPA also eliminated the much-maligned "Subsidy Cliff" at 400% FPL, wherein a household earning even $1 more than that had all premium subsidies cut off immediately, requiring middle-class families to pay full price for individual market health insurance policies.

Here's what the original ACA premium subsidy formula looked like compared to the current, enhanced subsidy formula:

Last week I reposted a press release & video from the Rhode Island Dept. of Administration explaining the details of a major security breach of the state's social services system.

Today it looks like the issue was a lot worse than I thought. via WPRI:

On Monday, Gov. Dan McKee said his team has identified 650,000 people whose personal information was stolen in the recent cyberattack on the state’s IT system for social services.

Yikes. FWIW, Rhode Island only has around 1.1 million people, so this basically means that 60% of the entire state population has had their personal info compromised. 

...Earlier this month, the cyberattack shut down the state’s IT system known as RIBridges, which serves as an eligibility database for a host of social services, such as SNAP and Medicaid, along with subsidized health insurance through HealthSourceRI.

via NV Health Link:

With Open Enrollment going on now through Nevada’s official health insurance marketplace known as NevadaHealthLink.com, there are less than two weeks left for Nevadans to get coverage starting the first of the new year. Nevadans must enroll in a plan by 11:59 p.m. on December 31, 2024, for their health insurance coverage to be effective starting January 1, 2025.

Those who don’t enroll by December 31 will still have a chance to enroll in coverage through January 15, 2025, however, those who enroll between January 1 and January 15, 2025, will have coverage beginning February 1, 2025.

Open Enrollment began on November 1 and since then, over 30,000 Nevadans have actively enrolled in a plan, with 15,236 being new to enroll on Nevada Health Link. The Open Enrollment Period is the only time of year Nevadans can freely enroll in a health insurance plan through NevadaHealthLink.com without experiencing a qualifying life event, such as getting married, having a baby or moving.

BeWell NM, New Mexico's ACA exchange, has an Open Enrollment Dashboard updated weekly:

As of Dec. 22nd, 2024:

  • Auto-Reenrollments: 40,719
  • Active Enrollments: 18,354
  • New Enrollments: 5,942
  • TOTAL: 65,015

What's more noteworthy is that when compared against the same point last year, New Mexico's 2025 ACA enrollment total is dramatically higher.

Not only is New Mexico's exchange enrollment up a whopping 29% vs. the same point last year, it's actually already 15% higher than the 2024 OEP's final total of 56,472!

Now that the two largest ACA marketplaces (HealthCare.Gov, which hosts 31 states, and Covered California) have joined a half-dozen other states in posting fairly recent 2025 Open Enrollment Period updates, I figured it would be a good time to take a look at where things stand ahead of the big holiday break.

Across 38 states, a total of around 19.5 million people have selected Qualified Health Plans (QHPs) via either the federal or state-based exchanges as of anywhere from 12/05 - 12/18. Collectively, this is roughly 16.6% higher than the same/nearly the same dates a year ago. It's important to remember that Georgia moved from the federal exchange to its own state-based marketplace this year, which is why ~1.2 million enrollees have been subtracted from the 2024 HC.gov total. Note that the HC.gov numbers are rounded off to the nearest 100K, per CMS's press releases both years.

via Covered California:

Covered California Hits Record Enrollment Before its First Key Open Enrollment Deadline on Dec. 31

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Covered California has surpassed 1.8 million enrollees, reaching its record-high enrollment with over a week until the first open enrollment deadline on Dec. 31.

This open enrollment, 143,686 Californians have signed up for 2025 coverage as of Dec. 14, marking a 3 percent increase over the same period last year.

Another 1,647,162 Californians have renewed their coverage so far, a 4 percent increase over the same period last year.

Combined, that's 1,790,848 Californians who have selected ACA exchange coverage for 2025. Taking the percents above literally that would mean CA had ~1,723,311 QHP selections thru 12/14/23 last year (up 3.9% overall).

It was in early 2021 that Congressional Democrats passed & President Biden signed the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA), which among other things dramatically expanded & enhanced the original premium subsidy formula of the Affordable Care Act, finally bringing the financial aid sliding income scale up to the level it should have been in the first place over a decade earlier.

In addition to beefing up the subsidies along the entire 100 - 400% Federal Poverty Level (FPL) income scale, the ARPA also eliminated the much-maligned "Subsidy Cliff" at 400% FPL, wherein a household earning even $1 more than that had all premium subsidies cut off immediately, requiring middle-class families to pay full price for individual market health insurance policies.

Here's what the original ACA premium subsidy formula looked like compared to the current, enhanced subsidy formula:

It was in early 2021 that Congressional Democrats passed & President Biden signed the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA), which among other things dramatically expanded & enhanced the original premium subsidy formula of the Affordable Care Act, finally bringing the financial aid sliding income scale up to the level it should have been in the first place over a decade earlier.

In addition to beefing up the subsidies along the entire 100 - 400% Federal Poverty Level (FPL) income scale, the ARPA also eliminated the much-maligned "Subsidy Cliff" at 400% FPL, wherein a household earning even $1 more than that had all premium subsidies cut off immediately, requiring middle-class families to pay full price for individual market health insurance policies.

Here's what the original ACA premium subsidy formula looked like compared to the current, enhanced subsidy formula:

It was in early 2021 that Congressional Democrats passed & President Biden signed the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA), which among other things dramatically expanded & enhanced the original premium subsidy formula of the Affordable Care Act, finally bringing the financial aid sliding income scale up to the level it should have been in the first place over a decade earlier.

In addition to beefing up the subsidies along the entire 100 - 400% Federal Poverty Level (FPL) income scale, the ARPA also eliminated the much-maligned "Subsidy Cliff" at 400% FPL, wherein a household earning even $1 more than that had all premium subsidies cut off immediately, requiring middle-class families to pay full price for individual market health insurance policies.

Here's what the original ACA premium subsidy formula looked like compared to the current, enhanced subsidy formula:

Pages

Advertisement