This morning, The New York Times ran an Op-Ed by Steven Rattner, including an impressive infographic (the type that represents the U.S. population as lines of silhouette icons representing 1 million people apiece), breaking out the entire country by what type of healthcare coverage they currently have. The point, of course, was to demonstrate just how many people either have healthcare coverage at all thanks to the ACA or how many have improved coverage thanks to it. Every data point presented is credited directly to this website.
I'm not saying this to brag (although it is pretty nifty...my mom is pretty geeked about her kid's work showing up in the Sunday New York Times). I'm mentioning it because I was expecting to receive a flood of attacks on the data and my credibility. There's a bunch of numbers listed there, and the "these are rough estimates" disclaimer at the bottom is pretty innoucuous. Instead...crickets.
I know I've been #humblebragging re. media attention lately. Part of that was to explain the server slowdown a few days ago; part of it is that I'm terribly insecure, and with the open enrollment period wrapping up, I suppose I'm starting to get a bit anxious about my relevance again, bla bla bla. My apologies for that.
Of course, with the recent #ACAOvertime extensions, followed up almost immediately by the #ACATaxTime enrollment periods, it sounds like my lease on relevance has been extended (again) by another couple of months (Vermont is extending their tax period all the way out until the end of May, for heaven's sake!). Plus, of course, the King v. Burwell SCOTUS case will be smack in between the two, and the decision on that isn't expected until June, so I guess there'll be plenty of material for this site for a few more months yet...
Having said that, there are a couple of items to note:
Over the past 2 days, enrollment data updates were released through at least the official February 15th deadline by DC, Vermont, Colorado, Massachusetts and Kentucky (Massachusetts and Rhode Island's new full deadline is now 2/23). In addition, Connecticut released a partial update which ran through Friday the 13th (not including the final surge weekend).
That means that aside from the 2 days in Connecticut, there's only 1 state which is missing significant enrollment data prior to the 2/15 deadline: Idaho. Idaho hasn't issued a full enrollment update report since January 13th, and their QHP tally hasn't been updated since the 2nd monthly ASPE report on January 27th, which brought their data up through January 17th (90,567 QHP selections).
As noted in prior Oregon updates, the exchange QHP total over at the state insurance division website always lags a few days behind the actual HC.gov numbers, but it's the best source for off-exchange QHP enrollments.
As of 2/15/15, exchange QHP selections totalled 110,228 (vs. the 104,201 on the state site), while off-exchange QHPs totalled 98,332...slipping behind for the first time, but still making up over 47% of the total:
The Insurance Division will collect enrollment information from carriers each week throughout 2015 open enrollment. Updated numbers will be posted each week on this web page.
Members enrolled,
Nov. 15-Feb. 15
On Healthcare.gov 104,201 Outside of Healthcare.gov 98,332
Total 202,533
About the data: Enrolled means a person has selected a plan. Consumers must pay the first month's premium for their coverage to become effective. These numbers do not identify whether the first month's premium has been paid. These numbers do not include Oregonians enrolled in the Oregon Health Plan (Medicaid).
OK, you can scratch Kentucky off the list; this leaves just 2 states left (Connecticut and Idaho) which haven't provided enrollment data thorugh the official 2/15 deadline:
2014/2015 Open Enrollment stats as of Thursday 2/19/2015:
Once the ball started rolling on #ACAOvertime extension periods, there was no stopping it; within a few days, all 50 states (+DC) had announced either full or "waiting in line" enrollment extension periods.
The same thing seems to be happening with additional "Tax Season" enrollment periods for people who didn't realize they owed/will owe a tax penalty for not having proper health insurance coverage. Washington was the first to make their announcement; Minnesota and Vermont quickly followed; this morning Healthcare.Gov (which covers 37 states) made it official; a few hours ago, California joined the club, and just now, New York chimed in:
"Regular as clockwork...or a time lock..."
(bonus points if you can guess the movie)
COVERED CALIFORNIA OFFERS CONSUMERS A CHANCE TO MINIMIZE THEIR TAX PENALTY BY ENROLLING IN A HEALTH INSURANCE PLAN
New Category Created for Special Enrollment Allows Those Unaware of a Tax Penalty for Being Uninsured to Sign up for Coverage by April 30
SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Covered California is offering a special enrollment opportunity for consumers who did not know or understand there was a tax penalty for being uninsured in 2014 or who learned they may face a penalty for 2015.
“For the first time, health care and taxes now are linked arm in arm,” Covered California Executive Director Peter V. Lee said. “The law requires everyone to be insured, and if you’re not, you may face a significant financial penalty when you file your taxes this year.”
From Feb. 23 until April 30, 2015, consumers are eligible to apply for health coverage during special enrollment by attesting that they did not realize there was a tax penalty. To attest to this fact, they can select “Informed of Tax Penalty Risk” when filling out an application at CoveredCA.com.
Last Sunday I decided to round up all of the different "overtime period" policies onto a single page, which has been linked to as a resource by a bunch of media outlets. Today I'm doing the same thing for the Tax Filing Season Special Enrollment Period (SEP), which has already been announced for 4041424344454648 states as of 3/11. The other 3 states (CO, ID & MA) have specifically stated that they won't be offering such a SEP:
Here we go...I was actually pretty much dead-on target with MA this week; 134,037 QHP selections, of which 108,168 have paid their first premium (81%). Again, remember that something like 25% of these folks aren't starting coverage until March 1st, so their payments aren't due until Monday night, so the payment rate is fine for the moment.
In addition, Massachusetts has extended their full enrollment period out through Monday, there will still be new folks who submit an application over the next 4 days. On top of that, there's potentiallyanother 103,000 approved applications already waiting for people to pull the trigger (6,707 of whom already have a plan in their shopping cart waiting to check out). Obviously not all of these will follow through, but if they did, that would shoot MA's total up to nearly 237K.
I actually wasn't expecting this to be announced formally until the next "weekly snapshot" report this Wednesday, but being past the official 2/15 deadline anyway and with 3 of the state exchanges already having made their announcement, I guess HHS/CMS figured there was no point in holding off.
Besides, there's another, slightly embarrassing reason to make the announcement as soon as possible, which I'll get to in a moment.
First, yep, HHS/CMS announced today that all 37 states operating via Healthcare.Gov will indeed have a special "Tax Filing Season" enrollment period, running from March 15th through April 30th.
Important caveat: This is officially only for people who 1) didn't enroll in coverage by 2/15/15; 2) had to pay the penalty for 2014 and 3) "only became aware of their penalty after 2/15/15". They'll have to check off boxes attesting to these things. Of course, the third item isn't the sort of thing that you can prove one way or the other, but whatever.
