Washington hospitals provided nearly $154 million less in charity care in the first half of this year than in the first half of 2013, in many cases boosting the hospitals’ bottom lines.
Hospitals attributed the plunge in charity care — about 30 percent — to the Affordable Care Act’s focus on reducing the number of uninsured patients.
This year, for the first time, low-income and uninsured patients whose care was previously covered under hospitals’ charity-care programs were able under the ACA to qualify for Medicaid coverage or subsidized private insurance.
Unfortunately, I don't know the market share breakdown, so I can't do a weighted average, but the DC Health Link exchange rates for 2015 have been released, and the unweighted average is only a 2.3% increase for the individual market. For the SHOP (small business) exchange the news is even better...a decrease of over 2% (again, unweighted). The SHOP rates carry a lot more heft in DC than in most states due to the unique rules in place there (like Vermont, all individual enrollment has to be done via the ACA exchange, and all Congressional staffers are required to enroll via the DC SHOP system):
The D.C. Department of Insurance, Securities and Banking today announced the approved health insurance plan rates for the District of Columbia’s health insurance marketplace, DC Health Link, for plan year 2015.
Eight carriers through four major insurance companies – Aetna, CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield, Kaiser Permanente and UnitedHealthcare – will have plan offerings for individuals, families and small businesses on DC Health Link when enrollment opens Nov. 15, 2014.
Ouch. While most states are seeing their list of insurance providers increasing this year, in a few cases some are dropping out...and in the case of Minnesota, it's the one with 59% of current enrollees:
The insurer with the lowest rates and most customers on Minnesota's health care exchange is pulling out.
Golden Valley-based PreferredOne this morning confirmed its exit from MNsure. It comes as a major blow to the exchange — the next open enrollment period starts Nov. 15 and runs through Feb. 15.
MNsure officials said the online insurance exchange would reach out soon to PreferredOne customers who bought coverage through MNsure last year with information on next steps.
They said consumers still have at least four, well-known, Minnesota-based carriers "who are committed to providing important health coverage" to everyone, including people who qualify for tax credits and public programs.
...According to a company statement, MNsure policies make up only a small percentage of PreferredOne's entire enrollment but take up a significant amount of resources to support.
One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice – – -
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
‘Mend my life!’
each voice cried.
But you didn’t stop.
Reason.com is a pretty conservative outlet, but Peter Suderman has an entry which asks some refreshingly valid questions. He starts with an overview of the report released yesterday by the CDC, which noted an overall drop in the uninsured number by about 3.8 million as of the end of March. To his credit, he follows up by calling attention to the fact that this doesn't include over half of the total QHP enrollments (as well as a lot of Medicaid additions):
But this survey probably doesn’t measure the full impact of the law. That’s because the survey was conducted from January through March of this year, when Obamacare’s open enrollment period was still ongoing. So it wouldn’t capture much of the last-minute enrollment surge that accounted for a significant portion of the sign-ups under the law. People who signed-up at the end of March, or in the extended enrollment period in early April, wouldn’t have technically been insured for another month or more.
When I last updated Kentucky's numbers on August 8th, Gov. Beshear had just repeatedly stated the latest number of people enrolled via the Kynect exchange as 521,000. He didn't break this out between QHPs and Medicaid, but I used a conservative estimate of around 91K & 430K respectively. Today, the Lt. Governor gave a similarly non-broken-down update:
Kentucky Lt. Gov. Jerry Abramson talked about Kynect earlier today during an appearance at the Kentucky Medical Association's annual meeting. At the event, he said implementing an exchange was necessary because it increased access to health care in our very unhealthy state. He said 527,000 signed up for coverage, primarily through Medicaid, which was also expanded.
Like some other states, Maryland has made some poor decisions when it came to setting up their ACA exchange last year, necessitating scrapping the original platform and replacing it with a customized version of Connecticut's much better system. While it remains to be seen how well the 2nd attempt will function, this is a very smart move on their part:
BALTIMORE (Tuesday, Sept. 16, 2014) — The second year of Maryland’s health insurance marketplace for individuals and families begins on Nov. 9 when consumers will have access to a newly redesigned website that enables “anonymous browsing,” the ability to compare plans — without registering personal information — before enrolling. This feature is being launched earlier than originally planned to enhance the shopping experience for Marylanders.
...Starting November 9, the redesigned exchange will be rolled out with a series of events, including a more intensive campaign of in-person assistance to help consumers and businesses during the upcoming season of open enrollment:
On the one hand, Vermont's ACA exchange still has serious technical flaws heading into the 2nd open enrollment period this November. On the other hand, under the circumstances, this is probably the smartest move to make right now:
The Vermont Health Connect website went down Monday night and will remain offline for several weeks to allow for improvements to the user experience and data security, state officials said Tuesday.
Customers who need to report changes in income or make changes to their coverage or personal information will need to contact the customer service call center.
...None of the major functions that are still being developed will be launched when the website comes back online, said Lawrence Miller Chief of Health Care Reform.
The timeline for remaining elements, such as online changes to coverage or personal information or allowing small businesses to use the site has not changed.
Those functions are expected to launch sometime next year.
Thanks for Chris Savage of Eclectablog for reminding me to check in on the latest Medicaid expansion numbers here in Michigan...
Healthy Michigan Plan Enrollment Statistics
Beneficiaries with Healthy Michigan Plan Coverage: 385,541
(Includes beneficiaries enrolled in health plans and beneficiaries not required to enroll in a health plan.)
*Statistics as of September 15, 2014
Yup, that's up another 9,800 in the past week. With roughly 500,000 Michiganders eligible for the ACA Medicaid expansion program, my state has reached 77% of the total potential enrollment in just 5 1/2 months.
