I've noted before that every once in awhile, someone trying to load Ted Cruz's official campaign website will inadvertently bring up this site instead, thanks to my whimsical decision a year ago to snap up a half-dozen copycat domains (TedCrooz.com, TedCruise.net, etc.) just for fun.
I further noted that a few of these folks still can't seem to figure out that the website clearly has nothing whatsoever to do with Ted Cruz's presidential bid, beyond occasionally poking fun at how full of crap he is when it comes to the Affordable Care Act, in spite of the overwhelming evidence. I know this because I've received at least 3-4 contact form submissions from these folks...and in every case before today, they still couldn't figure it out.
As you'll recall, the woman worded her question as follows:
O'DONNELL: Hello, I voted for Obama, but then my health insurance skyrocketed, from $490 a month to $1,081 a month, for a family of 4. I know Obama told us that we'd be paying a little more, but doubling...more than doubling our health insurance costs has not been a "little" more. It has been difficult to come up with that kind of payment every month. I would like to vote Democratic, but it's cost me a lot of money, and I'm just wondering if Democrats really realize how difficult it's been on working-class Americans to finance Obamacare.
I originally intended this to be an update to yesterday's post about the woman at the Ohio Democratic Town Hall in which a woman asked Hillary Clinton why her family's insurance rates have gone up from $490/month to $1,081/month since the Affordable Care Act was passed. However, that post had already gotten absurdly long and unwieldy, so I've split it off into a new entry.
In the comments yesterday, a man named Danny Robins posted the following. I've broken it up a bit for readability, and have included my responses; both his points and my responses lend some additional insight into both Ms. O'Donnell's dilemma as well as my own point about Clinton's response:
My Columbus Ohio based health insurance practice for the past 7 years has been focused on helping small employers offer more affordable health benefits outside of the employer sponsored health insurance market. It has been widely reported that up to 70% of small employers no longer sponsor a health plan because they can not afford it. As such, I have assisted with over 2,000 people obtain individual or family health coverage.
UPDATE: I made two major errors in my original calculations below: First, I thought that Ms. O'Donnell lived in Howell, Ohio; it turns out she lives in Powell, Ohio. Secondly, I didn't realize that her children likely qualify for the CHIP program, which is essentially the kid's version of Medicaid. I've updated all calculations to reflect both of these factors...and they actually make the point of the diary even more valid).
I didn't tune in to this evening's CNN Democratic Town Hall until right after a key question to/response from Hillary Clinton specifically about the premiums for individual policies on the Affordable Care Act exchanges. Fortunately, several people were uploading the entire things in chunks (of varying audio/video quality) even as it was being broadcast, so I was able to watch the clip in question:
A couple of weeks ago, I noted that the final, official ASPE report for the 2016 Open Enrollment Period was running quite a bit later than it did the first two years: In 2014 it was released either 12 or 16 days after open enrollment ended (OE1 ended on 4/15 but the report covered an additional 4 days), while last year it was also released 16 days after the end of the 2015 season.
For whatever reason, it took a full 40 days for the ASPE report to be released this year, but whatever; let's dig in!
First, it's worth remembering that the HHS Dept. included 1 extra day this year (Feb. 1st) for HC.gov as well as 4 of the state exchanges to account for some "in line by midnight" enrollees:
The Massachusetts ACA exchange reported exactly 196,554 QHP selections (including the still-qualifying "ConnectorCare" plans) as of January 31st, the final day of the 2016 Open Enrollment Period.
They just held their March board meeting, which always include highly detailed powerpoint charts & graphs running through the end of the prior month...so here's where things stand after the first month of the off season. The main number: The official effectuated enrollment number is up to 208,374 (remember, Massachusetts doesn't even report QHP enrollees until they've actually paid their premium. It'd be awesome if every other exchange was able to do so as well, as that would finally kill off the "But how many have PAID??" talking point once and for all.
UPDATE 3/19/16: OK, the voting period is finally over (for real, this time). The bad news is that we didn'tquitecrack the Top 10 in the end; our panel ended up with 11th place (122 votes), barely missing out on the 10th spot by a mere 3 votes.
The good news is that only 10 of the 90 total panel sessions were determined by the new voting system. The remaining 80 will presumably be decided by the traditional Netroots Nation selection committee process...and ours should still have an excellent chance of being picked, for two reasons:
Regular readers may have noticed that I've been posting fairly lightly of late. Now that open enrollment is over and we're deep in the thick of primary season, I'm trying to catch up with the massive backlog which has built up in my day job.
However, there's still a lot of stuff going on; today, for instance, brought some very positive Medicaid expansion news out of two states:
The New Hampshire House on Wednesday approved legislation that would keep 48,000 people on their insurance plans by continuing the state's expanded Medicaid program beyond the end of the year.
The bill, which now goes to the Senate, includes work requirements for recipients and asks insurance companies and hospitals to cover the state's share of the program's costs.
During the official Open Enrollment Period, MNsure enrolled 85,390 Minnesotans in Qualified Health Plans. Yesterday they held their March board meeting and updated their numbers through the first 5 weeks of the off season:
During Open Enrollment, MNsure averaged 928 QHP selections per day. During the off season, this has dropped down to 42 per day, or about 4.5% of the OE3 daily average.
If you extrapolate this nationally (and of course there's no way of knowing whether Minnesota is remotely representative), that would translate to around 6,200 people selecting exchange-based QHPs per day during the off season, which is lower than the past two years (7,000 - 9,000/day) but certainly within reason.
