California: 924K Private QHPs; 2.1M New Medicaid enrollees as of 03/09

Looks like California is fully recovered from their ugly February outage, but they're still not quite up to where I thought they were this week:

#CoveredCA enrollment reaches 923,832 through March 9. 1 million just around the corner!

— Covered California (@CoveredCA) March 13, 2014

In addition, California's NEW Medicaid enrollee numbers continue to skyrocket, up from 877K (exchange) / 652K (bulk transfers/other) at the end of January to a whopping 1.136 Million + 968,500 = 2,104,500 total (!)

The wording of the 1.136M Medicaid number specifies that this is a combination of NEW enrollees as well as "ongoing caseload activity", which sounds to me like people who enrolled a few months earlier but are still having paperwork issues. Either way, it sounds clear to me that these are not "renewals (aka rederminations)".

As for the 968.5K, I've already discussed the 650K LIHP transferees many times (the LIHP program was created specifically due to the ACA, so yes, they count as "New thanks to the ACA"), 134K via the NEW "Express Lane" program (not sure if this falls under "strict expansion" or "woodworkers" but it's definitely a new program, so all enrollees fit into one of these categories). The other 184.5K appear to be a combination of "strict expansion", "woodworkers" and "baseline churn", so I'm lopping off 30% of that group only on the spreadsheet until I hear otherwise.

The surge continues this month, with total enrollment in Covered California health insurance plans reaching 923,832 through March 9.

Additionally, 1,136,000 exchange applicants were determined to be likely eligible for Medi-Cal coverage. This number reflects new Medi-Cal applicants as well as some ongoing caseload eligibility activity that is conducted via the Covered California Web portal. 

Lee said insurance companies are reporting that 85 percent of all enrollees have paid their first month’s premium.

In addition to the 1,136,000 applicants determined likely eligible for Medi-Cal coverage through the Covered California Web portal, 968,500 individuals have already enrolled for Medi-Cal coverage. They include approximately 650,000 former Low Income Health Program (LIHP) members transitioned to Medi-Cal by DHCS, 134,000 individuals who applied through the state’s Express Lane program and another 184,500 individuals enrolled directly through county human services agencies, which play a critical role in the processing and approval of all Medi-Cal applications, including those received through Covered California.