Well, that was anticlimactic. After weeks of me whining about the lack of post-Open Enrollment data, Healthcare.Gov has finally stated (sort of buried in the middle of a press release) that around 36,000 additional people had enrolled via Healthcare.Gov as of March 29th via the Tax Filing Season Special Enrollment Period (aka #ACATaxTime):
As of March 29, about 36,000 consumers have selected plans using the tax special enrollment period in States using the Federally-facilitated Marketplace.
Now, all of those bold-faced phrases are important, because the actual Tax Filing Season SEP didn't start until 3/15, and this doesn't include any of the 14 state-based exchanges (really only 11 of them, though, since 3 states aren't offering #ACATaxTime). Also, from the exact wording, this does not include those who enrolled via "Qualifying Life Events" (ie, getting married/divorced, giving birth/adopting a child, moving to a new state, losing your existing coverage and so on).
Hey, journalism and political spinmeisters! Here's a great example of what not to do (if you're the former) and what to do (if you're the latter)!
Check out this story from the Detroit News about the success of Michigan's implementation of the Medicaid expansion provision of the Affordable Care Act, aka "Healthy Michigan":
Detroit — On the eve of the first anniversary of the Healthy Michigan Plan, Gov. Rick Snyder said Tuesday more than 603,000 Michiganians have enrolled since the expanded Medicaid Program launched on April 1, 2014.
Mazel Tov!! Over 600,000 Michiganders enrolled in a program enabled by and paid for by Obamacare! I'm sure they'll mention that in the 2nd paragraph, right?
The number exceeds by more than 100,000 people the two-year enrollment projections made prior to the program’s launch. The Healthy Michigan Plan provides health insurance to low-income working people for a minimal cost.
The short version is that she asked people to chime in with their "Obamacare Horror Stories" only to find that the response included a flood of "Obamacare is Awesome!!" stories.
Anyway, today she responded to the flood of positive tales by basically saying that those are mostly about the parts of the ACA which Republicans like, and therefore "don't count" for some reason or another:
Who can sign up?
The special enrollment period is for people who are uninsured now, have not had coverage at all in 2015, paid a tax penalty for not having coverage last year, and didn’t find out about that penalty until they did their taxes.
People in that situation can sign up for private insurance plans through Access Health CT, the state’s health insurance exchange, from April 1 through April 30. (People who qualify for Medicaid can sign up at any point in the year.)
When will the coverage start?
People who sign up by April 15 will receive coverage starting May 1. Those who sign up from April 16 through April 30 will receive coverage beginning June 1.
h/t to Charles Ornstein for the link to this amusing, if befuddling column in the Wall St. Journal today:
Two reports released in the past week demonstrate a potential bifurcation in state insurance exchanges: The insurance marketplaces appear to be attracting a disproportionate share of low-income individuals who qualify for generous federal subsidies, while middle- and higher-income filers have generally eschewed the exchanges.
And there we have it: The "Healthy Michigan" program, the Wolverine State's implementation of ACA Medicaid expansion, has broken the 600,000 enrollee mark:
Healthy Michigan Plan Enrollment Statistics
Beneficiaries with Healthy Michigan Plan Coverage: 603,681
(Includes beneficiaries enrolled in health plans and beneficiaries not required to enroll in a health plan.)
*Statistics as of March 30, 2015
*Updated every Monday at 3 p.m.
Montana senators endorsed a Republican's compromise Medicaid expansion bill Friday after voting to blast it out of committee and onto the floor earlier in the week.
Senators endorsed the amended measure 28-22 on Friday after more than 90 minutes of debate.
If it makes it past the state House, the Governor will definitely sign it, which is great news for up to 70,000 Montanans.
No, not that anti-Obamacare SCOTUS case; the King v. Burwell decision won't be announced until June.
The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday declined to hear a new challenge to President Barack Obama's healthcare law that took aim at a bureaucratic board labeled by some Republicans as a "death panel" because it was designed to cut Medicare costs.
The high court left intact a ruling by the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that threw out the lawsuit.
As you'll recall, after over a month of radio silence since the end of Open Enrollment, a couple of weeks ago the HHS Dept. finally stated, when asked directly about it by CNBC's Dan Mangan(although they didn't bother responding to me about it over the previous few weeks), that yes, they would be releasing post-OE2 enrollment data last week.
Well, last week came and went...and nothing. When called out for this publicly by Mangan on Friday afternoon, HHS responded by claiming that they'll do so this week.
While there's a few somewhat plausible ideas tossed in here and there, and a few even voluntarily participated in the ACA's Medicaid expansion program (ironically the most "socialized medicine-ish" provision of the law), on the whole their "policies" are pretty much big nothingburgers.
The most telling (and amusing/depressing, depending on your POV) entries are the ones for Rand Paul, Jeb Bush, Chris Christie, Rick Perry, Lindsey Graham and particularly Carly Fiorina:
UPDATE 3/30/15: I wasn't planning on "tweet-spamming" this one, seriously. However, given that this survey is starting to get traction among mainstream news outlets, I thought it was important to take a serious look at the methodology and what the survey is really saying.
So, some outfit called the Foundation for Government Accountability released a Big Survey which claims that Americans hate Obamacare, that they "don’t expect or want states to bail out Congress or the Obama administration" and that they're "prepared to vote against their state lawmakers the next time they’re up for re-election if they set up a state exchange."
First of all, who the heck is the Foundation for Government Accountability? Well, according to Wikipedia:
