It's been a crazy day, and there have been some major developments: California, Connecticut, Minnesota and Vermont all announced last-minute deadline extensions of various types for January 1st coverage. In addition, I received an unexpected bounty of enrollment data drops (either partial or complete) from California, Connecticut, DC, Hawaii and Massachusetts. On top of all that, there was big Medicaid news out of Pennsylvania and Tennessee.
So, after this massive information overload, have I changed my projections at all? Well, I may still adjust my calls for future milestones, but I'm sticking to my guns for Week 4 (December 12th) and Deadline Day (December 15th):
I'm actually a bit curious about the "new" specification here. Last week the head of the HI exchange gave an interview in which he gave the number as being 12,000, but it turned out that was a cumulative number which included all of the enrollments from last year (whether they had renewed yet or not) as well as the new additions. I thumbnailed it as being around 1,200 enrollments for 2015.
Therefore, I'm not sure how to take "nearly 1,500 new residents" in this case; that may mean "new for 2015 including renewals" or it may mean "new for 2015 not including renewals". Either way, the number isn't large enough to impact my spreadsheet/projections, but it's still a bit irritating:
Hawaii: Hawaii Health Connector has enrolled nearly 1,500 new residents as of Dec. 5. Last year glitches to the website caused enrollment to be delayed by two weeks. According to HealthInsurance.org, the state’s uninsured population has gone down from 8 percent of the population to 6 percent of the population since Obamacare went into effect..
District of Columbia: DC Health Link has enrolled 1,413 people, both new and renewed applications, according to data collected by last week Kaiser Health News.
Grammar aside, I'll assume "last week" means "through Friday the 12th".
I wasn't really expecting any data drops today, but I've already received surprise updates from California and Massachusetts, and now I can add Connecticut, DC and Hawaii all in one shot (via separate entries):
Connecticut: Last year the state's uninsured rate dropped by about half – from nearly 8 percent to 4 percent. Likely for this reason Kevin Counihan, the CEO of Access Health CT, was scooped up by the federal government to help fix Healthcare.gov. Latest figures for this year come from Dec. 12, which showed 39,000 new Medicaid enrollees and 13,000 new private health plans, according to an email from a state official. Late Monday, Access Health CT announced that it was allowing a grace period until Dec. 19 for enrollment that would begin January 2015. Consumers who had started an application before Monday could have four additional days to fill out their information.
That's 13K new enrollees only; again, it's safe to assume at least a 1:1 ratio between new & renewed enrollees, so I'm calling it at least 26K total for CT so far.
California’s health insurance exchange extended its deadline for consumers wanting Obamacare coverage in effect by Jan. 1.
Peter Lee, executive director of Covered California, said people who start the application process or make some “good faith effort” by Monday will have until Dec. 21 to finish signing up. Monday at midnight had previously been the hard deadline.
“We are providing this window to get people across the finish line,” Lee said at an exchange board meeting Monday. “We know many of the people applying have never had insurance before, and these are individuals who need to sit down and talk with someone.”
Lee said many insurance agents and enrollment counselors were already fully booked with applicants Monday. He said the deadline extension will allow people to make appointments through Dec. 21.
A nice update out of California...but still a frustrating one. They held an executive board meeting today at which they posted an updated QHP selection total for 2015: 91,693 as of 12/11/14. Unfortunately, this still doesn't include any renewal data for existing enrollees.
As I noted last week, however, I'm extremely confident that CA's renewals/re-enrollments are running easily at the same rate (or potentially as high as 4x as many) as new additions, so I'm very comfortable doubling this number to at least 184,000 total QHP selections as of the 11th.
Wow! I'm impressed! I know Massachusetts said they'd be issuing daily enrollment reports during weekdays, but I really didn't think they'd have time to do so today. Then again, their deadline isn't until next Tuesday (the 23rd), so I guess things aren't too crazy in the Bay State.
Anyway, let's take a look...
Well, they haven't officially updated the "QHP plan selection" tally in a week or so, but I'm reasonably certain that the % of "eligibility determinations", which had been hovering around 50-55% until about a week ago, should have worked it's way up to perhaps 60% in recent days. Assuming I'm correct about this, their QHP selection total should be roughly 52,600 by now, though I'll knock off 600 out of caution and go with 52K even.
Again: During the 2014 open enrollment period, MA only nabbed less than 32K during the full 200-day period, so they're already 60% ahead of last year less than 1/3 of the way through this one.
Meanwhile, they've also added 84K people to Medicaid as well.
STATEMENT FROM ACCESS HEALTH CT ACTING CEO JIM WADLEIGH ON TONIGHT’S OPEN ENROLLMENT DEADLINE FOR HEALTH CARE COVERAGE BEGINNING JANUARY 1, 2015
Hartford, Conn. (December 15, 2014) – In advance of tonight’s midnight deadline for coverage beginning January 1, Access Health CT (AHCT) Acting CEO Jim Wadleigh has released the following statement:
“The deadline to sign up for quality, affordable health care coverage that begins on January 1, 2015 is tonight at midnight. If customers have an application started and select a plan before midnight tonight, they can still get coverage beginning January 1, as long as they complete the application and get us all the relevant information by midnight this Friday, December 19.
How Brownback Is Relying On O-Care To Close Kansas' Huge Budget Hole
Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback (R) is calling all hands on deck to fix his state's huge self-imposed budget crisis, which nearly cost him re-election this year, and the staunch conservative is now receiving an assist from an unlikely source: Obamacare.
The state's well-documented budget troubles came after Brownback's dramatic reductions in taxes since taking office in 2011. With its revenue drying up and cash reserves depleted, Kansas is staring at a $280 million hole in its $6.4 billion FY 2015 budget, which ends in June.
Brownback offered his proposal for closing that hole last week, a mixture of spending cuts and transferring funds from other parts of the budget to fill it. And second biggest of those transfers is $55 million in revenue from a Medicaid drug rebate program that was bolstered under the Affordable Care Act.
The short version then is this: Obamacare is helping Kansas address its fiscal crisis -- even if Brownback's administration seems loath to admit it.
It'll still have to get through the GOP-controlled state legislature, of course, but it looks like you can scratch Tennessee off the "Expansion Refusenik" list. I presume this'll be a "Private Option" program similar to the one in Arkansas:
In a major policy move, Gov. Bill Haslam has announced the new Insure Tennessee plan, a two-year pilot program to provide health care coverage to tens of thousands of Tennesseans who currently don't have access to health insurance or have limited options.
The plan would be leveraged with federal dollars, said Haslam, who has been working on a Medicaid expansion plan that could gain approval from both federal officials and the Republican-dominated General Assembly.