Minnesota: MNsure cuts QHP projection by 1/3, but it was too high to begin with

Even I was surprised when I read that Minnesota's ACA exchange, MNsure, was projecting to more than double their 2015 enrollment figure. Yes, other states like Massachusetts are expected to increase their numbers severalfold, but it always seemed like a stretch for Minnesota, especially with their largest 2014 participant, PreferredOne, dropping out this year. They hit around 50K last year and were originally projecting to hit over 100K this time around.

Sure enough, they've decided to walk that number back a bit, down to 67K...which would be an increase of only 38% over the

48,495 they enrolled during the first open enrollment period:

MNsure on Wednesday said it was cutting by about one-third the number of people it expects will enroll in private health plans through the exchange for 2015.

That means MNsure will also see a drop in revenue, although officials say they expect to end the fiscal year next June with no red ink.

...MNsure gets some funding based on a small percentage of premium payments. In October MNsure projected that revenue would amount to almost $6.9 million but that estimate has now been reduced to about $5.3 million. That's based on an assumption that 37,000 people will sign up again and 30,000 newcomers will get private plans through MNsure instead of the 50,000 projected originally.

Ironically, I actually think they're undershooting now; my own projection is for them to hit roughly 72K, or a 48.4% increase over last year.

However, their 67K figure is a budgetary one, meaning that it refers to paying enrollees. 67K paying would be 93% of 72K, so it's possible that MNsure and my own projections aren't too far from each other after all.