Covered California Experiences Record-Breaking Enrollment for Consumers Seeking Jan. 1 Coverage
More than 55,000 Sign Up Over Two Days As Covered California Extends Deadline for Consumers
SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Covered California announced Wednesday that more than 197,000 consumers had enrolled in health care coverage by the end of Tuesday, Dec. 15, including more than 22,000 on Monday and more than 32,000 on Tuesday.
The two-day total of more than 55,000 surpassed the enrollment figures seen last year during the same two day period when more than 35,000 people signed up for coverage on Dec. 14-15, 2014.
“The interest we have seen over the last two days is further proof of the continued demand that Californians have for quality, affordable health care coverage,” said Covered California Executive Director Peter V. Lee. “We want to make sure that everyone who is working to get in the door has the time they need to get the coverage they deserve.”
Week 6 Projection: 1.50 Million / Actual: 1.33 Million (over by 13%)
Cumulative Projection: 4.34 Million / Actual: 4.17 Million (over by 4%)
Given the crazy developments of the past day or so, combined with the auto-renewal factor, things are kind of fuzzy this week. I'm gonna hold tight and assume roughly 4.3 million QHPsincluding auto-renewals will be added to the mix by Saturday, bringing HC.gov up to a total of 8.5 million by Saturday, December 19th.
However, there's a major caveat here: I have no idea how many auto-renewals will be added, so I could easily be off by as much as a half a million or so this week.
Update 12/18/15: Not really an update so much as a clarification: I'm guessing active QHP selections for this week via HC.gov could run anywhere between 1.0 - 2.0 million, plus another 2.5 - 3.5 million automatic renewals, for a weekly total of between 3.5 - 5.5 million.
REMEMBER, as always, that this only includes the 38 states included on the federal exchange; when you throw in the other 13 running their own exchanges, the grand total (assuming I'm in the ballpark) should be roughly 11.3 million QHPs nationally by the end of the week.
I launched the "State by State" chart feature towards the end of the 2015 Open Enrollment period last time around, and it proved to be pretty popular, so I've brought it back this year.
It's important to note that I'm still missing data from some state exchanges; I have bupkis from DC, Idaho, Kentucky, New York and Vermont. I also only have partial data from others (California includes new enrollees only, while several other states only have data for the first couple of weeks).
In addition, there are three states (Connecticut, Rhode Island and Washington State) where I have the opposite situation--they've front-loaded their autorenewals of current enrollees, with the understanding that those folks can still drop their coverage or switch to a different policy between now and December 15th (CT) or December 23rd (RI & WA).
With all those caveats out of the way, here's where things stand. Just like last year:
I'm sticking to my guns for Week 6, projecting an even 1.5 million QHP selections via HealthCare.Gov, bringing the grand total to 4.34 million as of 12/12.
REMEMBER, as always, that this only includes the 38 states included on the federal exchange; when you throw in the other 13 running their own exchanges, the grand total by the 12th should be roughly 5.76 million QHPs nationally.
More than 1.3 million consumers signed-up for health coverage through the HealthCare.gov platform between December 6 and December 12, the last full week before the deadline for January 1 coverage, bringing the total number of plan selections made since Open Enrollment began on November 1 to 4.17 million consumers. Approximately 500,000 were new consumers, for a cumulative total of about 1.5 million new consumers since the beginning of Open Enrollment.
As I note every week, between Rhode Island's tiny population, tinier ACA exchange numbers and especially their decision to "front-load" autorenewals of all current enrollees ahead of the 12/23 deadline for January coverage, their official QHP selection tally is only going up a few hundred per week. Week Six is no diffferent:
INDIVIDUAL AND FAMILY ENROLLMENT As of December 12, 2015:
With all that in mind, as of October 25th, no matter how I slice it, the national weighted average increase for 2016 seems to be somewhere between 12% - 13%.
As a result...I'm in a bit of a holding pattern when it comes to projecting The Graph for the next couple of days. There are two main reasons for this:
First, assuming CMS sticks with the pattern, they should release the Week Six "snapshot" report sometime Wednesday afternoon. I called Week Six at an even 1.50 million QHP selections via HC.gov. I can't solidify the curve for this week until I know how close/far off I was last week.
Second, and more to the point, in light of last night's 2-day extension and corresponding server overload, I have no way of knowing a) what the "spread" of QHP selections is between new and active renewals, and b) I have no idea whether Wednesday/Thursday/Friday will be three huge days in a row or a single massive day followed by two "merely large" days.
BLITZER: But my question was: Should these Silicon Valley companies be forced to cooperate with the FBI?
FIORINA: They do not need to be forced. They need to be asked to bring the best and brightest, the most recent technology to the table. I was asked as a CEO. I complied happily. And they will as well. But they have not been asked.That's why it cost billions of dollars to build an Obama website that failed because the private sector wasn't asked.
Note to Carly Fiorina: The original HealthCare.Gov, which launched and, yes, failed miserably in 2013 was built by the "private sector"...namely, Canadian-owned CGI Federal.
This isn't particularly surprising now that HealthCare.Gov has already done the same thing, but it's still big news:
COVERED CALIFORNIA EXTENDS ENROLLMENT DEADLINE FOR JAN. 1 COVERAGE
Current enrollment surpasses last year’s demand
SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Due to very high demand for health insurance through Covered California, the deadline to enroll for coverage starting Jan. 1 will be extended until Dec. 17 to accommodate the surge in interest.
The Service Center will be open from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. on Dec. 16 and Dec. 17.
“The spike in interest we are seeing in the last few days tells us there is continued demand for quality, affordable coverage,” said Executive Director Peter V. Lee. “We already have enrolled more consumers this year for Jan. 1 coverage than we did last year.”
Covered California has heard from our certified enrollers, including agents, that they still are processing thousands of applications and appreciate the additional time to ensure consumers receive coverage for all of 2016.
“We want to make sure everyone calling for coverage gets the help they need,” Lee said.
“Because of the unprecedented demand and volume of consumers contacting our call center or visiting HealthCare.gov, we are extending the deadline to sign-up for January 1 coverage until 11:59pm PST December 17.Hundreds of thousands have already selected plans over the last two days and approximately 1 million consumers have left their contact information to hold their place in line. Our goal is to provide access to affordable coverage, and the additional 48 hours will give consumers an opportunity to come back and complete their enrollment for January 1 coverage. ”
--Kevin Counihan, CEO of the Health Insurance Marketplaces
Welp, you can probably throw The Graph out the window now, at least in terms of the "spike" hitting right around now. My model was based on the assumption that yes, there'd be a huge spike yesterday and today, followed by perhaps 3 million auto-renewals being tacked on all at once tomorrow/Thursday.
