As always, this is just an estimate; it could be slightly higher or lower. However, my best estimate is that 2015 private QHP selections via the various ACA exchanges (HC.gov plus the 14 state-based versions) will cross the 9 million milestone sometime today if it hasn't already done so.
In addition to the 6.59 million enrollees via the federal exchange which were just confirmed within the past hour or so, today has also seen updates from Minnesota, Kentucky and Massachusetts. Plug all of those into the Spreadsheet and the confirmed, official total has now reached 7.56 million nationally.
Tack on an estimated 960K renewals (active & automatic) from California, around 330K from New York, along with another 150K or so from the past week or two across various states (remember, some state exchanges such as Idaho haven't updated their numbers for as long as 24 days), and I'm quite confident that the 9 million mark has been reached. As always, see The Graph (also posted below) for a visual representation of where things stand and where they should be headed.
MNsure will release 2015 enrollment metrics weekly, and will present a more robust metrics summary to the MNsure Board of Directors at each regularly-scheduled board meeting. During weeks that MNsure is closed on Friday, the enrollment metrics update will be released earlier in the week.
Health Coverage Type Cumulative Enrollments Medical Assistance 29,936
MinnesotaCare 12,225
Qualified Health Plan (QHP) 41,704
TOTAL 83,865
The major change here isn't so much new QHPs (just 1,844 of the increase) as the autorenewals (or "passive renewals" as MNsure calls them) which made up 8,701 of the total:
Updated @MNsure enrollments: 83,865 total. 41,704 in QHP (8,701 of which are passive renewal), 12,225 in MinnesotaCare and 29,936 in MA
In the post-deadline, post-holiday period, Massachusetts seems to be settling into a pattern: Around 6,000 total eligibility determinations per day during the week, around 2,000/day on weekends. Of those, around 60% of them tend to be Medicaid enrollments, the other 40% for private policies (QHPs, which also include "ConnectorCare" in this case).
Yesterday there were another 6,508 added; 3,760 were immediately enrolled in MassHealth (Medicaid). The other 2,748 were for QHP applicants. As always, assuming at least 50% of those also selected a plan, that should tack another 1,400 to the total, bringing it to around 86,400 or so, while total Medicaid enrollments are now up to over 157K.
...The plaintiffs’ premise in King is that Obamacare was never intended to offer credits to people in states with federally-run exchanges. Indeed, by reading one passage of the Affordable Care Act out of context, they claim that the law unambiguously states that only state-run exchanges are allowed to provide tax credits.
But that’s not the conclusion Walker reached after spending a couple of years considering the question. Rather, in his interview with theWall Street Journal, Walker explains that there is no practical difference whatsoever between state-run and federally-run exchanges:
Ahead of the latest weekly report from HC.gov, Gallup reports that:
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- The uninsured rate among U.S. adults for the fourth quarter of 2014 averaged 12.9%. This is down slightly from 13.4% in the third quarter of 2014 and down significantly from 17.1% a year ago. The uninsured rate has dropped 4.2 percentage points since the Affordable Care Act's requirement for Americans to have health insurance went into effect one year ago.
The uninsured rate declined sharply in the first and second quarters last year as more Americans signed up for health insurance through federal and state exchanges. After the open enrollment period closed in mid-April, the rate leveled off at around 13%. The 12.9% who lacked health insurance in the fourth quarter is the lowest Gallup and Healthways have recorded since beginning to track the measure daily in 2008. The 2015 open enrollment period began in the fourth quarter on Nov. 15 and will close on Feb. 15.
A Roseburg-based nonprofit recently made news when it announced it can't afford to offer health care insurance for its employees and is preparing to pay a federal fine under the Affordable Care Act that's likely to reach six figures.
Adapt provides drug and addiction treatment in three Southern Oregon counties and employs 183 people. However, rising costs have made group health insurance so expensive that the organization has decided to budget for fines of up to $2,000 per employee, according to Susan Jeremiah, the agency's human resources director.
As of Jan. 1, 2015, all employers with more than 100 full-time equivalent employees are required to offer affordable health care insurance or face penalties.
In view of broad reader interest in the story, we asked Portland attorney Iris K. Tilley, a partner with Barran Liebman who advises employers on employee benefits, to answer a few questions about the Roseburg case and the ACA in general.
Taking a look at the QHP Spreadsheet, here's where things stand as of today (or at least as of the latest data provided by the exchanges to date).
It's impossible to know how close most of the HC.gov states (along with California, New York & Hawaii) are to their targets because the renewal/autorenewal data either hasn't been provided yet (CA, NY, HI) or has been provided but hasn't been broken out by state yet (35 of the states on HC.gov).
In most cases, the official government target is based on 30% above last spring's 8 million figure (10.4 million = 30% higher), but in some cases the state exchange itself has set the bar.
In my case, I'm generally assuming around 56% higher than last year, except for Massachusetts which is a special case (see below):
UPDATE 01/07/15: A few more states have updated their numbers so I've updated the table as well:
As always, assuming a minimum of 50% plan selections out of the QHP eligibility determinations, Massachusetts should have tacked on another 1,600 QHPs yesterday, bringing their total up to around 85,000 to date.
Immediate Medicaid enrollments have crossed 153,000.
