With today's confirmation of 6.75 million QHPs via HC.gov (thru 1/09) and the almost-certain-to-be-close 90K figure from Massachusetts (through yesterday), the confirmed (or virtually confirmed) QHP total nationally is now up to over 7.82 million. However, my estimate is now up to 9.34 million, or around 1.52 million higher.
I've done this before, but this seems like a good point to again review where the gap between the numbers is:
OK. The latest weekly snapshot released by the HHS Dept. an hour or so ago was about 25,000 enrollees higher than I figured, which is nice. However, the real news was that they included a state-level breakout of all 37 states, which is awesome!
I've plugged all 37 states into the spreadsheet, broken into 2 numbers: Total active renewals (ie, those who actively renewed or switched plans by the 12/15 deadline) and total autorenewals + new enrollments (unfortunately, I can't really break these out; I tried, but there are overlaps between the 12/15 ASPE report and the 12/19 weekly snapshot). In addition, the autorenewals are a "lump sum" instead of being broken out by state; I attempted to estimate based on the percent-of-total but came up with some states having negative figures, so obviously there are too many variables. That is, just because a particular state has, say, 2% of the active renewals doesn't mean they had 2% of the auto renewals, and so on.
Anyway, after plugging everything into the spreadsheet--along with the state-based exchange data--I can now see just where the HC.gov QHPs are...and the results are impressive and interesting in several ways:
At least 18 states (well, 17 + DC) have achieved 100% or more of the HHS's (admittedly lowballed) target (or in some cases, the state administration's publicly-stated target) for 2015 already. Note that this generally assumes 30% higher than last year's open enrollment total (ie, 10.4M nationally = 30% more than 8M):
Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Delaware, DC, Florida, Indiana, Kansas, Maine, Maryland, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Virginia, West Virginia and Wyoming
I say "at least" 18 because we still have zero renewal/re-enrollment data from California, New York or Hawaii, and even the new enrollee data is still as much as a month out of date in a few states.
Massachusetts, as always, is a special case. 30% higher than last spring would only be around 42,000; they're up well over 2x that already. However, a more realistic goal for them would be 175K or more given the unique nature of their situation.
Another likely 1,100 QHPs yesterday (out of 2,540 QHP eligibility determinations) means that Massachusett's QHP selection total should be up to around 90,700 by now. Medicaid has broken the 175K mark:
The HHS Dept. just released the Week 8 "snapshot" report which has the actual total coming in slightly higher, at 6,756,438, about 0.4% higher.
The real news this week is that HHS has provided an updated STATE BY STATE BREAKDOWN for all 37 states operating off of the Federal ACA exchange!
This is a completely unexpected bonus, and kudos to the HHS Dept. for providing this!
I'm working right now on breaking the state-level numbers out by renewals and new enrollment using the table above + the monthly ASPE report from a couple of weeks ago, but that'll take a bit of time. Stay tuned...
As you may recall, a week or so ago I ran into a weird discrepancy with the numbers out of a few states. In the case of Vermont, it turned out that the enrollment data they were releasing included both QHPs and Medicaid without distinguishing between the two.
The following numbers are up-to-date as of 11:59pm Monday, January 12, 2015.
New Vermont Health Connect Customers
8,709 individuals have checked out a 2015 health plan. This includes 3,506 individuals in Qualified Health Plans (private health insurance) and 5,203 individuals in Medicaid or Dr. Dynasaur plans.
BOISE, Idaho – In the first two months of open enrollment, Your Health Idaho processed 83,383 customers, which includes consumers renewing coverage for 2015 and new applicants.
“Having health insurance gives Idahoans peace of mind that if something horrible should happen they are covered” said Your Health Idaho executive director, Pat Kelly. “We are happy so many Idahoans have been able to find a health insurance plan that meets their needs, however, we know many more people still need to find coverage and we will continue to reach out to them until open enrollment ends on February 15.”
ID had 74,689 enrollees as of December 14th (including autorenewals). They bumped out their January deadline a bit, but that's still a pretty good baseline for the post-deadline numbers: 8,694 between 12/15 - 12/31, or 511 per day.
They also include some demographic data for the 83.4K QHPs:
Massachusetts continues to set the example (are you paying attention, CoveredCA??), releasing near-daily enrollment reports and regular weekly reports with hard numbers on QHP enrollments every week (including payment data, I should note):
Again, assuming 45% QHP selections out of the 2,652 determined eligible for private policies, MA should have tacked on another 1,200 or so yesterday, bringing their QHP total up to around 89,600 to date.
In addition, they've enrolled another 3,709 into MassHealth (Medicaid).
Ouch. I was expecting CoveredCA to announce somewhere in the neighborhood of 314K new QHPs for 2015 through Sunday night (the 144K already announced, plus another 170K since 12/15). Instead, the total turned out to be just 217,146. I was way off on this figure, and I'm willing to accept that. In fact, in retrospect, I must've miscalculated something, since the odds of enrolling more new people in the 28 days following the January coverage deadline (which also included the "dead zones" of Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, New Year's Eve and New Year's Day) than the 31 days before that deadline were almost nil.
As I noted the other day, CoveredCA will be releasing (hopefully) completely updated ACA enrollment data, right up through Sunday night (1/11) in about a half an hour. So far they've only said that 144K new QHP enrollees have been added, and even that only includes 11/15 - 12/15. They haven't released any data on renewals of the 1.12 million 2014 enrollees yet, nor have they issued any further updates on new additions since Dec. 15th, 4 full weeks ago.
I've noted several times that I'm expecting them to announce roughly 960K renewals (active + automatic) from California, or around 85% of current enrollees to be renewed/re-enrolled. If that proves accurate, that would bring their 12/15 total up to around 1.1 million. That just leaves the new enrollments since 12/15.
Obviously the real unknown here is the renewal/autorenewal number. If it's fairly close to 85%, I should be pretty close on my total.
On the surface, this is just another (admittedly good) enrollment update from Maryland:
As of Jan. 11, 169,462 Marylanders have enrolled in quality, affordable health coverage for calendar year 2015, since the 90-day open enrollment period began Nov. 15. That includes 91,137 people enrolled in private Qualified Health Plans and 78,325 people enrolled in Medicaid.
Marylanders can enroll by Jan. 18 for coverage effective Feb. 1 and, if eligible, for an Advanced Premium Tax Credit (APTC) to immediately lower their monthly insurance bills. Marylanders who were enrolled for 2014 should re-enroll by Jan. 18 for an Advanced Premium Tax Credit that begins Feb. 1. They will receive any tax credit owed for January 2015 when they file their federal income tax return in 2016.
