Some Guy, 12/16:

Nationally, my rough guess for this week is something close to the following:

  • Sunday, 12/13: 360K nationally (270K HC.gov)
  • Monday, 12/14: 460K nationally (350K HC.gov)
  • Tuesday, 12/15: 780K nationally (600K HC.gov)
  • Wednesday, 12/16: 1.80M* nationally* (1.40M HC.gov) (*400K active + 1.40M auto-renewals?)
  • Thursday, 12/17: 2.10M* nationally (1.60M HC.gov) (*400K active + 1.70M auto-renewals?)
  • Friday, 12/18: 80K nationally (60K HC.gov)
  • Saturday, 12/19: 70K nationally (50K HC.gov)
  • Weekly Total: 5.65M nationally (4.33M HC.gov)
  • Cumulative Total: 11.30M nationally (8.50M HC.gov)

Remember that HC.gov generally represents about 3/4 of national enrollments, so for Wednesday and Thursday, I assumed around 300K active selections per day for the federal exchange.

OK, this is a bit of a downer on an otherwise extremely positive day, but given my recent obsession with trying to track down the number of people still currently enrolled in effectuated policies for 2015, it seems worth making note of.

Remember, the official exchange effectuation figure as of 6/30/15 was 9.95 million people.

Back in early November, I cobbled together the effectuated enrollment data from 8 different state-based exchanges, and concluded that the numbers stayed relatively from the end of June through the end of September. With Massachusetts included, the numbers were actually higher, and even without MA included (special case) it was only down a nominal amount. With only 8 states representing a small percentage of the national population, however, there was no way of knowing how representative this was.

Just to clarify, I fully realize that Disney/LucasFilm would've had to agree to such an official ad campaign.
I'm assuming that it's OK for me to do this under parody/fair use.
Images will be removed if requested. Please don't sue.

A very welcome, if unofficial, update from Connect for Health Colorado:

DENVER (AP) – A new insurance-matching tool similar to Uber car sharing is helping Colorado’s health insurance exchange meet demand during the open enrollment period for people who need to sign up for health coverage , an exchange official said Thursday.

And an extended deadline didn’t hurt.

Open enrollment ends in January for Connect For Health Colorado. But Thursday was the deadline for shoppers to have coverage in effect by Jan. 1.

More than 117,000 people had signed up, though exact figures weren’t available, said Connect For Health spokesman Luke Clarke.

Connect for Health wants to see 217,000 people signed up by next summer. Clarke said the exchange is ahead of last year’s pace, when 113,000 had signed up by the December deadline.

The article doesn't specify what the "thru date" for the 117K figure is, but I'm assuming that it was as of 12/15 since that was the original deadline for January coverage and the story ran today.

Well, this is mostly good news, anyway. A week or so I reported that Michigan's version of the ACA's Medicaid expansion provision (called simply "Healthy Michigan") was at risk of having the plug pulled because a) it has to be re-approved by CMS and b) the revised version of the waiver includes some pretty draconian extra requirements.

The problem was that if CMS didn't approve the waiver, the entire program would be shut down, kicking some 600,000 Michiganders off their healthcare coverage next April.

Well, as Amy Lynn Smith reports via Eclectablog, CMS did end up approving the waiver after all, ensuring that the Healthy Michigan program continues for another few years:

CMS has approved the second waiver and the Healthy Michigan Plan will continue without any disruption.

Michigan Governor Rick Snyder had this to say in a statement:

Thanks to Richard Mayhew for calling my attention to this item. He titled his piece "Technically True Bullshit", and while I tried to come up with a more clever (clever-er?) title, I couldn't do it.

Scott Gottlieb, MD is very big on making sure to include the "MD" in his Twitter handle. I guess that way people will assume that he's a very smart fellow when it comes to healthcare and health insurance. Of course, he's also officially a "fellow" at the right-wing "think tank" American Enterprise Institute. He also writes pieces for Forbes, often in a tag team effort with my old buddy Avik Roy. I've actually referenced Dr. Gottlieb (MD!) a couple of times before, most notably a year and a half ago when he claimed that off-exchange individual enrollments were "as high as 20%" according to "one Wall Street analyst".

Wow!! Impressive!!

Enrollments thru 12/15: 28,270 new + 121,495 active & passive renewals = 149,765. + Medicaid since 11/1 = #QuarterMillionMarylanders Covered

— MD Health Connection (@MarylandConnect) December 17, 2015

As I noted last month, according to the Maryland Health Benefit Exchange's October board meeting slideshow, their official projection for OE3 QHP enrollment is...150,000 people.

In other words, like Massachusetts, Maryland has already hit the target for the 2016 Open Enrollment just halfway through the period. The difference is that Massachusetts never really issued their own formal target (well, OK, technically Maryland needs 235 more people...)

The Kaiser Family Foundation just released their latest monthly healthcare tracking poll, and the results are forehead-slappingly depressing:

The Affordable Care Act’s third open enrollment period will end on Jan. 31, but the latest Kaiser Health Tracking Poll finds that only a small share of people without health insurance realize it.

Just 7 percent of the uninsured correctly identify January as the deadline to enroll; another 20 percent say the deadline is at the end of 2015, while everyone else either says they don’t know, gives another date or says the deadline has already passed.

Color me impressed!

Covered California Experiences Record-Breaking Enrollment for Consumers Seeking Jan. 1 Coverage

More than 55,000 Sign Up Over Two Days As Covered California Extends Deadline for Consumers

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Covered California announced Wednesday that more than 197,000 consumers had enrolled in health care coverage by the end of Tuesday, Dec. 15, including more than 22,000 on Monday and more than 32,000 on Tuesday.

The two-day total of more than 55,000 surpassed the enrollment figures seen last year during the same two day period when more than 35,000 people signed up for coverage on Dec. 14-15, 2014.

“The interest we have seen over the last two days is further proof of the continued demand that Californians have for quality, affordable health care coverage,” said Covered California Executive Director Peter V. Lee. “We want to make sure that everyone who is working to get in the door has the time they need to get the coverage they deserve.”

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