I just received another official update from the MA Health Connector...
On enrollment, as of today, we have 261,619 enrolled members for January. We have an additional 14,368 plan selections made (but unpaid) for a total of 275,994 under the CMS definitions. New enrollments for 2019 continue to trend slightly ahead of last year.
A week or so ago I noted that Massachusetts had enrolled just over 264,000 people (10,000 of whom hadn't actually paid their January premium yet...MA's exchange is one of the only states which is able to actually track payment data live, since they handle it themselves). They were up 10K over the same date in 2017, or up around 4% year over year.
I don't have a hard "thru 12/05" number for 2017 this week, but they did confirm the 276K number is still "slightly ahead", which is good.
Michigan was pretty much Ground Zero for the 2018 Blue Wave midterm elections. In addition to Democrats flipping the Governor's seat (and holding onto Debbie Stabenow's U.S. Senate seat), they also flipped the Attorney General, Secretary of State, one of two state Supreme Court seats, both of the stateBoard of Education seats which were up and all six state University Board seats which were up. In addition, they picked up two U.S. House seats, five state Senate seats and five state House seats.
It was a complete and utter repudiation of both Republican governance and their agenda.
As Democratic candidates prepare to take three statewide offices on Jan. 1 — governor, attorney general and secretary of state — Republican lawmakers introduced bills Thursday to challenge their authority.
More than 90,500 new consumers selected a plan through Nov. 30.
While plan selections are ahead of the pace set in 2016, when Covered California also delayed its marketing until after Election Day, they are slightly behind the pace set during 2017.
Roughly 1.2 million Covered California enrollees have been renewed for 2019, similar to last year’s totals.
An estimated 1.1 million uninsured Californians are eligible to enroll in Covered California or Medi-Cal. New research shows that 82 percent of uninsured consumers surveyed, who are eligible for financial assistance, do not know that they qualify.
Consumers must sign up by Dec. 15 in order to have their health insurance start on Jan. 1, 2019. Open enrollment in California continues through Jan. 15.
DENVER — More than 46,000 Coloradans selected health coverage through Connect for Health Colorado® during November, a number 6 percent ahead of the pace one year ago, according to new data released today.
“We started with a strong month but there are now only 12 days left to get coverage in place for Jan. 1,” said Connect for Health Colorado® CEO Kevin Patterson. “It is time for Coloradans who buy their own health insurance to act to protect their health and their family finances.”
During November, Connect for Health Colorado customers made 46,332 medical plan selections. The total was 43,881 medical plan selections for the comparable period in 2017.Fifteen percent of the plan selections are by customers who are new to Connect for Health Colorado and 85 percent are renewing customers.
Two weeks ago I reported that Access Health CT, Connecticut's ACA exchange, had enrolled 12,777 people in 2019 ACA exchange policies, running neck and neck with last year. This included active renewals and new enrollees only.
HARTFORD — Enrollment in Access Health CT is higher this year than it was last year at this time, but time is running out.
Officials said they’ve enrolled 9.685 customers who are new to the exchange this year, and they’ve auto-enrolled more than 91,000 customers who purchased plans with them in 2018. That brings total enrollment up to 101,054 individuals as of Nov. 30.
Last year, about 90,428 individuals had enrolled by this time.
A couple of weeks ago I reported that the Washington Health Benefit Exchange reported enrolling a seemingingly astonishing 190,000 people into 2019 policies in just the first 10 days of the 2019 Open Enrollment Period. This is highly misleading, of course, because only a small fraction of these are new enrollees, and a somewhat larger portion are current enrollees actively renewing their policies.
The vast bulk of that 190K are current enrollees who are auto-renewed into 2019 policies by the exchange itself...with the option to then actively go into the system and opt to cancel their renewals if they wish. There's nothing wrong with this, and in fact more and more of the state exchanges seem to be doing it this way as they improve and streamline their software (I've confirmed that Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Rhode Island and Washington State are "front-loading" autorenewals this year, although Maryland hasn't actually reported their data yet).
Earlier this week, a picture of a letter sent to a patient needing a heart transplant recommending that they find a way to raise $10,000 to cover some costs went viral on Twitter and Facebook, with various celebrities, politicians etc. reposting it.
I'm sure you've seen it already, but just for the record, here's one of the most viral variants, from freshman Congresswoman-elect Alexandra Ocasio-Cortz. It's important to clarify that the letter was not sent by the insurance carrier, and the $10K in question would not be going to pay an insurance company...or, in fact, even "Spectrum Health" aka the "Heart & Lung Specialized Care Clinics" noted in the letterhead.
Insurance groups are recommending GoFundMe as official policy - where customers can die if they can’t raise the goal in time - but sure, single payer healthcare is unreasonable.
PROVIDENCE — HealthSource RI, the state’s health insurance exchange, reports 31,000 people have signed up for health care coverage about a month into the open enrollment period for the 2019 plan year ending Dec. 23, 3,600 enrollments ahead of where they were at this point last year.
Last year at about this time during open enrollment, HealthSource RI had counted about 27,400 people enrolled for health insurance through the exchange, according to HealthSource RI Director Zachary W. Sherman.
Sherman said the agency has seen many people renewing existing coverage either manually or automatically.
“We’re pleased with where we are with sign-ups,” Sherman said.
