Charles Gaba's blog

Last Sunday I decided to round up all of the different "overtime period" policies onto a single page, which has been linked to as a resource by a bunch of media outlets. Today I'm doing the same thing for the Tax Filing Season Special Enrollment Period (SEP), which has already been announced for 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 48 states as of 3/11. The other 3 states (CO, ID & MA) have specifically stated that they won't be offering such a SEP:

Here we go...I was actually pretty much dead-on target with MA this week; 134,037 QHP selections, of which 108,168 have paid their first premium (81%). Again, remember that something like 25% of these folks aren't starting coverage until March 1st, so their payments aren't due until Monday night, so the payment rate is fine for the moment.

In addition, Massachusetts has extended their full enrollment period out through Monday, there will still be new folks who submit an application over the next 4 days. On top of that, there's potentially another 103,000 approved applications already waiting for people to pull the trigger (6,707 of whom already have a plan in their shopping cart waiting to check out). Obviously not all of these will follow through, but if they did, that would shoot MA's total up to nearly 237K.

Well, that was certainly fast.

I actually wasn't expecting this to be announced formally until the next "weekly snapshot" report this Wednesday, but being past the official 2/15 deadline anyway and with 3 of the state exchanges already having made their announcement, I guess HHS/CMS figured there was no point in holding off.

Besides, there's another, slightly embarrassing reason to make the announcement as soon as possible, which I'll get to in a moment.

First, yep, HHS/CMS announced today that all 37 states operating via Healthcare.Gov will indeed have a special "Tax Filing Season" enrollment period, running from March 15th through April 30th.

Important caveat: This is officially only for people who 1) didn't enroll in coverage by 2/15/15; 2) had to pay the penalty for 2014 and 3) "only became aware of their penalty after 2/15/15". They'll have to check off boxes attesting to these things. Of course, the third item isn't the sort of thing that you can prove one way or the other, but whatever.

OK, strike that...Colorado has released their newest data as well as DC and Vermont, leaving just 3 states to go (Connecticut (data since 2/13), Kentucky (data since 2/12) and Idaho, which hasn't posted any updates since way back on January 17th...over a month ago.

Anyway, here's Colorado:

DENVER, CO – Between Nov. 15 and Feb. 15, nearly 220,000 Coloradans enrolled in healthcare coverage for 2015, either in private plans purchased through the health insurance Marketplace, or with Medicaid or Child Health Plan Plus (CHP+), according to new data released today by Connect for Health Colorado® and the Colorado Department of Health Care Policy and Financing.

During the three-month open enrollment period, 139,652 people enrolled in private coverage through Connect for Health Colorado; another 76,194 in Medicaid and 3,720 in CHP+.  Connect for Health Colorado also enrolled 24,884 individuals in dental plans.

There's one very interesting tidbit, however:

WIth the DC and Vermont updates this evening, there are now only 4 states which haven't brought their enrollment data up through the end of open enrollment: CO, CT, ID and KY:

Vermont Health Connect Open Enrollment and Renewal Update

The following numbers are up-to-date as of 11:59pm Sunday, February 15, 2015.

New Vermont Health Connect Customers

15,422 individuals have checked out a 2015 health plan. This includes 6,211 individuals in Qualified Health Plans (private health insurance) and 9,211 individuals in Medicaid or Dr. Dynasaur plans.

After a new customer checks out a plan, they must make an initial premium payment and have their selection processed before they have an active health plan. Of the 15,422 individuals who checked out, 11,704 have completed the enrollment process and have an active health plan (i.e., effectuated enrollment). Of those who completed the process, 3,471 are on a Qualified Health Plan and 8,233 are on Medicaid or Dr. Dynasaur.

Renewing 2014 Vermont Health Connect Plans

The good news is that the DC exchange has released their official enrollment data through 2/15. The bad news is that it's slightly lower than I had previously thought, for exactly the reason that bothered me a few weeks back...they kept listing the cumulative enrollments since October 2013, mixing in those who never paid or who didn't renew for 2014. Fortunately, the difference is pretty minor:

Today, the DC Health Benefit Exchange Authority (HBX) released individual marketplace data for the second open enrollment period for DCHealthLink.com, the District’s online health insurance marketplace for individuals, families and small businesses.

Last week I posted an exclusive piece over at healthinsurance.org called "Hating ‘Obama’ but loving the ‘Care’ which noted an ongoing irony: The very red/red-leaning states which tend to "hate" the ACA the most are actually the ones signing up for it in droves. At the time, by grouping the states into one category or the other (using judgment calls for some states...I put Michigan in the blue column but Wisconsin in the red, for instance), I noted that the red states had a dramatically higher number of enrollments, even when the total populations are nearly identical in each group.

Today I've updated this data with the most recent numbers, and the difference is even more striking.

Now, there are a few important caveats here:

The numbers are starting to quetly ramp up again as we approach the MA Health Connector's extended enrollment deadline (February 23rd): 1,247 QHP determinations on Monday; 1,678 on Tuesday and 2,366 yesterday. Assuming at least 70% of these went on to actually enroll (I can't imagine it'd be any lower than that at this point...who would bother applying this late in the game if they don't plan on following through??), actual QHP selections should be up to 132.5K or higher at this point.

Medicaid in Massachusetts is now up to over 260,000.

At this point, either the original estimates were way off, the economic situation in Michigan has changed dramatically since last year, or there's something seriously weird going on:

Healthy Michigan Plan Enrollment Statistics

Beneficiaries with Healthy Michigan Plan Coverage: 559,965
(Includes beneficiaries enrolled in health plans and beneficiaries not required to enroll in a health plan.)

*Statistics as of February 17, 2015 
*Updated every Monday at 3 p.m.

Again, the original estimates were that somewhere between 477K - 500K Michiganders were eligible for the program. They're up to between 12% - 17% above that range now.

This is a "mini" update, as it doesn't include the final weekend, but it still means that CT nudged over their internal 100K target without those last 2 crucial days:

As of 2/13, there were 103,007 QHP Enrollees and 433,429 medicaid customers. #AHCTBoDMeeting

— Access Health CT (@AccessHealthCT) February 19, 2015

The Medicaid number is a bit misleading; I'm almost certain  that 433K figure refers to everyone in Medicaid state-wide, not just via ACA expansion. The state only has 3.6 million people total; I find it difficult to believe that 12% of the population falls into the expansion range specifically.

They also threw in the SHOP tally:

Dental plans & the SHOP program continues to show solid gains. Over 1,100 SHOP members enrolled. #AHCTBoDMeeting