OK, the HHS/CMS Dept. has issued the following...the cut-off date for the "overtime" period is 1 week (Sunday, February 22):
“We are pleased that the vast majority of consumers were able to apply and pick a plan through HealthCare.gov or its call center without a problem. For those consumers who were unable to complete their enrollment because of longer than normal wait times at the call center in the last three days or because of a technical issue such as being unable to submit an application because their income could not be verified, we will provide them with a time-limited special enrollment period for March 1 coverage."
Addition background information from CMS:
This special enrollment period (SEP) will start on February 16, 2015, and end on February 22, 2015.
Enrollments completed during the SEP will have an effective date of March 1, 2015, to align with the coverage effective date the consumer would have received had they been able to complete the enrollment process by February 15, 2015.
Considering that not one, not two, but forty-six states have announced some sort of open enrollment extension period, and considering that yesterday's IRS tax verification outage (and other technical issues in Washington State) may have caused the delay of a whopping half a million QHP selections or more, it behooves me to bite the bullet and modify The Graph to accomodate the new situation.
The main thing to notice is that although I've made some significant adjustments to my individual state projections, my overall final projections haven't really changed at all (aside from nudging the HC.gov/State Exchange split from 9.4M/3.1M to 9.5M/3.0M). I'm still calling for around 12.5 million QHP selections in the end (possibly a bit less than that); I've just bumped out the target date from 2/15 to 2/28.
Just a few hours ago, Access Health CT issued what seemed to be a fairly solid, hard-line statement about midnight tonight being their open enrollment deadline.
Apparently the moves made by HC.gov, CO, NY, CA, MA, WA & MD (just moments earlier) got to Connecticut...
MARYLAND HEALTH CONNECTION ALLOWING PEOPLE WHO HAVE BEGUN ENROLLMENT APPLICATIONS TO COMPLETE THEM UNTIL FEB. 28
BALTIMORE (Feb. 15, 2015) — Due to high demand during this final weekend of open enrollment for 2015, Maryland Health Connection is allowing people to complete their enrollments until Feb. 28, 2015. Marylanders need to have started an enrollment application at MarylandHealthConnection.gov or have contacted the call center at 855-642-8572 before midnight Sunday, Feb. 15 to be able to complete the process by Feb. 28.
After midnight Sunday, MarylandHealthConnection.gov will include the message: "Open enrollment for 2015 has ended. If you began to enroll by the February 15 deadline but were not successful, please check the box below and you may go ahead and complete your enrollment. You must finish your enrollment no later than February 28. … [ ] I started an application or called the call center to enroll by the February 15 deadline but was not able to complete my enrollment.”
I've confirmed that Rhode Island's weather-induced enrollment extension is indeed state-wide and is of the "full" variety (ie, people can start the application process, not just finish it), through February 23rd. This is exactly the same policy that the Massachusetts exchange announced the other day.
This morning, in light of yesterday's major income verification outage at the IRS, HHS Sec. Burwell's comments from the other day, the massive snowstorm impact in Massachusetts, Rhode Island and DC, and a series of "waiting in line" extension period announcements by various state exchanges, I revised my QHP selection projections:
11.7 - 12.0 million by midnight tonight (EST)
12.2 - 12.5 million by 2/28 (that's the final "waiting in line" date given by New York)
Since I'm not a big fan of "ranges", I'm going to pin down my final call more closely:
11.9 million by midnight Eastern
12.4 - 12.5 million by 2/28, and for good measure...
9.5 million via Healthcare.Gov + 3.0 million via the state exchanges
Yesterday, Tami Luhby of CNN Money posted an article focusing on people who received a federal tax credit for part of all of 2014, but who will now have to pay some or all of it back to the IRS when they do their taxes because their household income ended up being higher than they had anticipated:
Janice Riddle got a nasty surprise when she filled out her tax return this year.
The Los Angeles resident had applied for Obamacare in late 2013, when she was unemployed. She qualified for a hefty subsidy of $470 a month, leaving her with a monthly premium of $1 for the cheapest plan available.
Riddle landed a job in early 2014 at a life insurance agency, but since her new employer didn't offer health benefits, she kept her Obamacare plan. However, she didn't update her income with the California exchange, which she acknowledges was her mistake.
Now, she has to pay back the entire subsidy, which is forcing her to dip into her savings.
Janice Riddle has to pay back her entire Obamacare subsidy.
Last spring, in light of the massive last-minute crush of enrollees, caused partially by the even more massive early technical issues at HC.gov and various state exchanges, the administration announced a 15-day "waiting in line" extension period which allowed anyone who had started the process as of midnight on March 31st, 2014 to have until April 15th to complete their enrollment checkout. It was a huge success, and resulted in an additional 900,000 people selecting a plan.
A few of the individual state exchanges even went beyond that, with either "full" or "waiting in line" extensions that bumped all the way out to the end of April or even May, in the case of Nevada...but at least there were specific dates given.
Yesterday, in response to a devastating 9-hour income verification system outage which prevented an unknown number of people from getting through the system, the HHS Dept. gave a vague announcement that:
...If you can’t submit your completed application, just save it. If you do, we'll make sure you can return later to finish and enroll for March 1 coverage.
I've stressed, over and over again, that my 12.5 million "by midnight February 15th" national QHP selection estimate assumed that there would be no further significant technical problems at Healthcare.Gov or the other exchanges.
As it happens, a couple of states (Washington in particular) have been having "significant technical problems" throughout the enrollment period after all, but nothing that would impact the overall numbers by more than perhaps 100K total...and HC.gov has been smooth sailing the entire way.
Consumers had difficulty submitting their applications for health insurance on Healthcare.gov just one day before this year's deadline, a Health Department official said Saturday.
"Some consumers have been unable to submit their application because their income is unable to be verified as a result of intermittent issues with external verification sources," the Department of Health and Human Services official said.
OK, CoveredCA had hit 1.314M as of Wednesday, and added about 46,000 more on Thursday & Friday (21K & 25K respectively) to reach 1.36 million as of last night.
That means they'd have to enroll a whopping 340K today and tomorrow, or 170K each day, to reach their 1.7M target. To reach my own just-lowered target of 1.6 million, they'd have to enroll 120K/day, which might be feasible.
Of course, with the extra 5 day "waiting in line" extension, they might be able to pull off one or the other.
