Massachusetts' #OE3 enrollment numbers have to be handled a little carefully. Unlike most exchanges which mainly report the number of Qualified Health Plan (QHP) selections (ie, placed in cart & checked out), the Massachusetts Health Connector is very careful to specify how many of those are actually entered into the system and have paid their first monthly premium.
More than 57,000 people enrolled in health coverage through MarylandHealthConnection.gov during the first nine days of 2016 open enrollment, more than double the enrollment traffic during a comparable span a year ago.
Of the 57,213 who enrolled from Nov. 1 through Nov. 9, 10,867 were in private qualified health plans; 45,402 were in Medicaid and 944 were in stand-alone dental plans. The large Medicaid total included previous Medicaid enrollees who were in Maryland's former legacy system and were "redetermined" into the new web-based system.
Assuming roughly a 25% QHP selection increase this year (at least, that's what I'm assuming), that would translate into around 750K nationally, 570K of which would be via HealthCare.Gov, but I'll be a little cautious and drop it back to at least 720,000 QHPs in Week One nationally, 550,000 via HealthCare.Gov.
November 12, 2015
By: Sylvia Mathews Burwell, HHS Secretary
In the first week of the third Open Enrollment, more than 540,000 people selected a health insurance plan through the HealthCare.gov platform and more than 1.15 million consumers were included on applications submitted to the Marketplace. Even more signed up through their State-based Marketplaces.
[assuming that everyone currently enrolled sticks with their current policy next year], no matter how I slice it, the national weighted average increase for 2016 seems to be somewhere between 12% - 13%.
My attempt to boil down the overall, weighted-by-market-share, national average 2016 individual market rate increases into a single percentage figure has received a lot of attention over the past few weeks, including not one but two citations from Paul Krugman of the New York Times, feature articles from Bloomberg News and the Huffington Post, and even a partly-mangled version from the right-wing Daily Caller.
I'm not name-dropping for the heck of it here; my point is that I've been a little jumpy about that particular projection (12-13% overall) getting so much attention because I honestly had no clue how accurate it was.
In late September, the handful of CEOs leading Affordable Care Act-funded consumer operated and oriented plans traveled to Denver in search of answers.
The past year had been a difficult one. Their companies were struggling, awash in red ink and facing a mounting list of operational challenges. A few co-ops had already shut down, and regulators were circling several more. The fledgling health insurers needed more support from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services if they were going to survive. Most importantly, they needed a lot more money.
I know you're not supposed to repost entire articles, but this one is about as short & to the point as it gets. Go visit the Billings Gazette:
HELENA — Montana officials say about 5,500 people have signed up for Medicaid in the first week of expanded eligibility to the working poor.
Department of Health and Human Services Director Richard Opper announced the results of the initial wave of enrollments during a cabinet meeting Tuesday.
An estimated 70,000 people are eligible now that Medicaid has been expanded to people who earn up to 138 percent of the federal poverty level — $33,000 for a family of four.
That's about 8% of Montana's potential Medicaid expansion population in the first week. Not bad!
Wow! After 3 1/2 Republican debates spanning upwards of 13 hours or so (7 debates, actually, if you include the "Kiddie Tables" separately), a few hours ago FOX Business Channel's Maria Bartiromo finally asked a substantive question regarding the Affordable Care Act, and Carly Fiorina was the first Republican candidate to actually say anything substantive about it (note: I'm not counting the boilerplate "we need to repeal/replace Obamacare!" bits tossed on the plate like croutons by Marco Rubio and Jeb Bush).
The good news (relatively speaking) is that the 200,000-odd New Yorkers currently enrolled in about-to-be-defunct Health Republic NY Co-Op policies have been given an extra 15 days to find a new insurance provider (11/30 instead of 11/15), and that those who don't do in time will be automatically enrolled in a temporary (1-month only) policy with someone else to at least ensure coverage to tide them over through January. The temporary policy may or may not include their preferred doctors/hospitals, but it's better than having no coverage at all during the December gap period, anyway.
