ALERT: Our call center has closed today due to the city disturbances. Find in-person help: http://t.co/HYoHhs8uRf
— MD Health Connection (@MarylandConnect) April 28, 2015
However, any impact on actual ACA enrollments should be nominal.
Maryland had 120,145 QHP selections during open enrollment. Assuming my combined #ACATaxTime + "normal" Off-Season enrollment rate estimate of roughly 10,500 people per day nationally (through Thursday the 30th, anyway) is accurate, MD's share of this should be roughly 1% of this, or around 108 people per day at the moment. Even then, only around 1/3 of the total would be specifically for the tax season special enrollment period (the others would presumably just be delayed by a few days).
From October 1, 2013 to April 26, 2015, 106,364 people have enrolled in health insurance coverage through DC Health Link in private insurance or Medicaid:
22,354 people enrolled in a private qualified health plan,
67,761 people have been determined eligible for Medicaid, and
16,249 people enrolled through the DC Health Link small business marketplace (includes Congressional enrollment)
From October 1, 2013 to March 8, 2015, 89,852 people have enrolled in health insurance coverage through DC Health Link in private insurance or Medicaid:
MORE THAN 33,000 CONSUMERS UNAWARE OF TAX PENALTY FOR BEING UNINSURED HAVE ENROLLED IN HEALTH INSURANCE THROUGH COVERED CALIFORNIA SINCE FEBRUARY
Those Without Health Insurance Have Three Days to Enroll in Covered California to Minimize Penalty for Being Uninsured in 2015
SACRAMENTO, Calif. — With just two days until the April 30 deadline, Covered California urged consumers on Tuesday to enroll in health coverage and announced that more than 33,000 people who signed up since February indicated they were unaware of the tax penalty for being uninsured. The 33,000 enrollees were among more than 91,000 consumers who enrolled in coverage through special enrollment since open enrollment ended in February.
Not that anyone's reading today (all eyes are on either Baltimore or the Supreme Court, with good reason), but this is a nice little ancillary benefit of the Affordable Care Act:
Dear Charles,
Thought you'd appreciate this.
Some imposter used my SSN to file a tax return this year, which I found out when I tried to e-file. I've done all the identity theft things, filed my return on paper with the identity theft affidavit from the IRS website, etc. etc. But I wondered whether the fraudster had gotten several thousand dollars out of the Treasury.
Today I got a letter from the IRS, saying they couldn't process my 1040EZ return because it didn't include the Health Insurance tax form, reconciling the subsidy I got (which their computer had matched up with my return) with the credit I was actually entitled to.
I haven't filed a 1040EZ since maybe 1975, so this was obviously the fraudulent return, not my real one. (My real one has the health insurance form on it, of course.) I was delighted that their filter matched ACA information against the return before sending out the refund. I called the IRS to let them know, and will follow up with the IRS in writing to make sure they don't send any refund.
After months of never-ending growth, "Healthy Michigan", aka MI's implementation of the Affordable Care Act's Medicaid expansion provision, has officially stabilized at around 600,000 enrollees:
The reason it's bobbling around the 600K mark, of course, is because of normal "churn" as people move onto/off of the program as they gain/lose jobs, move into/out of the state, give birth/lose family members and so forth.
A few days ago, YouGov.com posted the results of their own survey about the ACA, which showed pretty much exactly the same results as both the Bloomberg News and Kaiser Family Foundation polls released last week: Obamacare still isn't exactly beloved, but acceptance/approval of the law has been gradually (if grudgingly) increasing ever since the ugly rollout of the ACA exchanges a year and a half ago:
I didn't bother posting about this poll because it seemed a bit redundant; all 3 surveys asked questions in different ways, but the results are pretty consistent across the board.
Here's a conundrum for today's Florida Republicans: You love tax cuts and hospital corporations while hating education and poor people.
You're all set to slash taxes (again) while also giving hospitals $1.3 billion from the federal government to reimburse them for losses they incur from treating poor people who can't afford to pay their bills.
At the same time, you're kind of a huge jerk, so you refused to expand Medicaid to over 800,000 of your residents, even though you won't have to pay a dime for the first 3 years, a few percent for the next few years and no more than 10% of the cost after that.
The Supreme Court rules that you don't have to do so, so you get to spend a couple of years laughing in the face of 800K low-income people while simultaneously rubbing the Obama Administration's nose in your ass-jackery.
Finally, the HHS Dept. decides to fight back by threatening to pull that $1.3B away from your hospitals unless you play ball.
Suddenly, you're in a bind. If you cave, then terrible things will happen: 800,000 people will receive decent healthcare coverage and you'll be found guilty by your fellow Republicans of having a soul. The Horror! Can't have THAT happen!!
I live in Michigan, but I've never heard of Patrick Colbeck. All I know about him is that he wrote an Op-Ed piece for the Detroit News on Friday which has more factual holes than the swiss cheese I put on my turkey sandwich last week:
Obamacare’s days are numbered. Either the Supreme Court will strike it down via rulings on cases like King v. Burwell, it will be repealed in 2017, or it will implode on itself taking the health of many of our citizens with it.
A couple of days ago, the editiorial board of the News posted an editorial which correctly calls for the renewal of Healthy Michigan, which requires a federal waiver once a year (I think) in order to continue because it includes modifications from simply increasing the eligibility threshold to 138% of the Federal Poverty Level.
Just a quick reminder: The tax filing season special enrollment period is still going on for 1 more week 1 more day in 45 states (+DC), and all the way until the end of May in Vermont:
To date, there have been at least 106,000 confirmed QHP selections specifically due to the #ACATaxTime SEP:
