According to the new report, they've had a total of 117,024 QHP selections since then (through May 10th), including #ACATaxTime enrollments:
Add them together and you get 1,529,224 total QHP selections to date (well, as of 5/10, anyway).
One interesting side note: CA's final #ACATaxTime tally turned out to be nearly 10,000 higher than expected (they previously reported around 33K with just a couple of days to go in the special enrollment period; apparently a lot of people jumped in at the last second after all)
On the surface, aside from the extra 10K for #ACATaxTime, that doesn't sound too interesting...I already had CA down with 1,503,200 QHPs, so this is just 26,024 higher. Big deal, right?
Except for one thing: I've confirmed that the number below represents actual paid, effectuated enrollments as of March 2015:
Holy smokes. The Kaiser Family Foundation, without which running this site would be much harder, has released their 2nd annual (I assume it'll be done every year) Survey of Non-Group Health Insurance Enrollees.
There's a heck of a lot of findings to absorb here, almost all of which overlaps with the areas I cover here at ACASignups.net, so it'll take some time to go over it all. However, here's my initial thoughts:
The survey, conducted February 18 – April 5, 2015, after the close of the second open enrollment period, includes individuals who purchased ACA-compliant coverage inside or outside of a Marketplace, as well as those who are currently enrolled in “non-ACA compliant” plans.
These are really important points to keep in mind when looking at their findings. It does include off-exchange enrollments, whether ACA-compliant or not (and in fact those distinctions are the focus of some of KFF's findings).
Throughout the long, tortured life of the Affordable Care Act over the past 5+ years, one of the easiest attack points has been to go after the sheer bulk and complexity of the law itself. Whether you're referring to the actual wording of the law (supposedly a whopping 2,700 pages long) or, even worse, the 8-foot tall stack of 10,000 - 20,000 pages of regulations related to "Obamacare", Republican politicians, pundits and talk show hosts have used the immense size of the ACA itself to go after it.
I'm bringing this up now because my big project the past week or two has been to track down the various 2016 policy premium rate change requests for the companies operating both on and off the ACA exchanges in all 50 states (+DC, of course).
So far I've done a pretty good job with OR, WA, CT, MI, DC and VT...and I have partial data for MD & IA.
Yesterday I estimated that total #ACATaxTime-specific enrollments were likely around 200,000. Today, thanks in part to CNBC's Dan Mangan, I can pin this down even further. The bold-faced states are the ones where the number is provided by Mangan's report:
But there’s another potential twist to the tale: Just as he is now seeking to get on Obamacare, he could very well find himself unable to sign up for coverage, if the Supreme Court rules for the challengers in King v. Burwell next month.
...an HHS official tells me that if he can get his income up a bit — it reportedly fluctuates — he could probably qualify for a category that would allow him to apply for Obamacare again before next year’s open enrollment period.
But if the Court strikes subsidies in three dozen states on the federal exchange — one of which includes South Carolina — it could put Obamacare even further out of reach for Lang.
Of course, if the Supreme Court decides to blow up the entire system with an adverse King v. Burwell decision, all bets are off, as none of the “requested” rate changes will have any meaning whatsoever in the 34 states without their own exchange.
...In short, if the King plaintiffs win, prepare for one heck of a mess next year.
Yesterday I noted that a seemingly minor announcement (HHS tweeting that the final #ACATaxTime tally for the federal exchange from 3/15 - 4/30 ended up being 147,000 people) had a greater significance than that, because tacking that onto the grand national total brought the official tally up to the 12 million milestone.
Personally, this didn't mean much to me because I estimate that the actual total (including unreported numbers from various exchanges) is more like 12.4 million or higher anyway...and on the flip side, the number of people actually paid up with effectuated enrollments is more like 10.1 million, and has been for a month or so now. Still, officially hitting the 12 million mark seemed worth noting, so I did so.
An hour or so ago, Luis Lang, who earlier today announced his support of Single Payer healthcareand his decision to leave the Republican Party (specifically over their obstruction of the Affordable Care Act) posted the following update on his GoFundMe account:
Lifelong Republican Turns On His Party, Embraces Obamacare
Luis Lang, who is currently crowdfunding for medical expenses that he can’t afford because he didn’t sign up for insurance under Obamacare, has become a viral sensation. However, the 49-year-old South Carolina resident says he doesn’t want to be the poster child for the Republican Party’s opposition to health care reform anymore.
Many people both here and over at Daily Kos have criticized me, either for donating a few bucks ot Mr. Lang in the first place or alternately, for coming down so hard on the guy in my blog posts. Some thought it was a waste of time (and money) to help the guy out, while others thought it was an equal waste of time/breath to chastize him, figuring that it'd fall on deaf ears. Still others thought that it's inappropriate to donate money with one hand while berating him with the other. Well, guess what?
After all the fuss and bother made over the #ACATaxTime Special Enrollment Period by myself and others, the final number of QHP selections was announced in the most understated way possible:
From March 15 to April 30, 147,000 consumers signed up for coverage through http://t.co/eTfU7hSMWR using the tax special enrollment period.
