When I last checked in on ACA Medicaid expansion in California back in mid-September, it had reached a whopping 2.2 million...or possibly as high as 2.55 million, depending on whether the number included a massive backlog of 350,000 CA residents.
Well, it now seems that not only has that question been answered, but the grand total is a bit higher yet: 2.6 million low-income Californians can thank Obamacare for their newfound healthcare coverage:
The state Medi-Cal system has taken on 2.7 million more Californians since October 2013.
That's an increase of 31% from the 8.6 million previously enrolled. The jump brings the current number of Californians in the Medi-Cal program to 11.3 million -- roughly 30% of the state's population. Medi-Cal is California's Medicaid program.
Obamacare may not have played as great a role on Election Day as predicted, but President Obama's signature legislation has assumed a larger than anticipated role somewhere else this fall: health-sector stock performance.
As third-quarter earnings reports roll in, the improvement in profits that hospitals and insurance companies attributed to the law three months ago as being maybe no more than a one-time pop are looking more durable.
"People are coming around to the idea that maybe it's good,'' said Les Funtleyder, portfolio manager at New York hedge fund Esquared Asset Management and a former Wall Street health-care analyst. "Maybe it's not a flash in the pan but a theme going forward."
During open enrollment, people can sign onto their employer’s health care benefits plan, or, if they’re already enrolled, change plan options. For most companies with a fiscal year ending Dec. 31, open enrollment runs from late October to late November.
As for Gruber, all I'll say is that I hope Obamacare covers Foot-in-Mouth Disease, but I don't see what he actually said as being all that devastating. As Kevin Drum noted:
But if we can take just a half step up from radio yammerhead land, did Gruber say anything that isn't common knowledge? I'm not playing faux naive here. I'm serious. Basically, Gruber said two things.
First, he noted that it was important to make sure the mandate wasn't scored as a tax by the CBO. Indeed it was, and this was a topic of frequent discussion while the bill was being debated.
...As for risk-rated subsidies, I don't even know what Gruber is talking about here. Of course healthy people pay in and sick people get money. It's health insurance. That's how it works.
An October survey from health care think tank Kaiser Family Foundation found that 89 percent of the nation’s uninsured have no idea that open enrollment through the law’s insurance exchanges starts Saturday.
Two-thirds of the uninsured said they knew “only a little” or “nothing at all” about the state and federal exchanges through which people can buy subsidized coverage. And more than half — 53 percent — said they didn’t know that federal tax credits could help them pay for a plan.
Those survey results are a problem because they mean the consumers who are supposed to benefit most from the Affordable Care Act may be less likely to take advantage of the assistance the law provides.
I admit to being astonished by this. I figured that even those who hate the ACA (well, they hate "Obamacare", not "The Affordable Care Act", even though it's the exact same thing) at least know when the open enrollment period for it starts (if only so they can criticize the start date for being moved to 11/15 for political reasons).
Hawaii Public Radio (hey, what's up with their exchange website anyway? We heard a lot about Maryland & Massachusett's overhauls, and Oregon & Nevada moving to HC.gov, but not so much about Hawaii, which was also having nasty technical issues...) posts a list of 5 things people should remember going into the 2nd Open Enrollment Period...
Here's a quick checklist for people who don't get their health insurance at work and plan to shop for coverage on the health law's online exchanges. Enrollment starts Nov. 15, but you can start kicking the tires now.
Compare plans and prices at HealthCare.gov or, if your state has its own exchange, shop there to find out which coverage is best for you. And you may be eligible for subsidies to help pay your premium.
Keep these five things in mind as the three-month open enrollment period begins.
Not to be outdone, the Seattle Times has posted seven tips for #OE2:
This site is so much about number-crunching that the human factor often gets lost in these parts. Every once in awhile I try to remind myself (and my readers) of that, and with #OE2 coming up in just 3 days, this seems like as good a time as any:
The Affordable Care Act may have saved Nehemiah Ankoor’s life, and the health care law helped Carol Jackson get her life back.
The second enrollment period for private health insurance subsidized through the federal law will take place Saturday through Feb. 15. Ankoor and Jackson, Springfield-area residents who previously were uninsured, signed up for coverage during the first enrollment period, which ended March 31.
They said they hope rhetoric from critics of the law doesn’t discourage uninsured people from applying for what, to them, turned out to be a godsend.
“Obamacare’s a great thing,” Ankoor, 22, said of President Barack Obama’s signature legislative achievement. “It’s helping a lot of people who you wouldn’t think it would help.”
I haven't done these average-rate-increase posts in a while, but this one came across my screen today so I figured I should post about it.
Back in August, Washington State announced that they had final approved rates on the 90 plans being offered on the WA exchange, with an average increase of 1.9%. However, I didn't know what the market share breakdown was at the time, so I couldn't tell whether that was weighted or not.
Well, today they've issued a more comprehensive press release, covering both on- and off-exchange policies (230 total: 90 on the exchange, 140 off of it). The unweighted overall average increase is a mere 1.5%:
OLYMPIA, Wash. - Individuals and families looking for health insurance this fall have 15 insurers and 230 health plans to choose from, starting Nov. 15.
The average approved rate change was 1.5 percent. Originally, the insurers requested an average 8.3 percent increase, but it was lowered after a review by the Office of the Insurance Commissioner.
Bankrate, according to their website, is "the Web's leading aggregator of financial rate information, offering an unparalleled depth and breadth of rate data and financial content." I've never heard of them before, but this is certainly possible.
However, a few weeks back they published the results of a survey in which they concluded that 51% of those who used the ACA healthcare exchanges last year don't plan on doing so again this year. In short, they're making it sound like up to half of the 8 million people who enrolled through last April (7.1 million of whom were still enrolled as of October 15th) plan on bailing this time around.
Naturally, various right-wing news outlets like TownHall and the Daily Caller pounced all over this survey, claiming (again) that this proves that Obamacare is dead, dead, deader than dead.
With all the Open Enrollment Period changes for 2015 (#OE2), it can get confusing to follow where you're supposed to go to buy an ACA-compliant healthcare policy this time around (especially if you qualify for tax credits to help pay for it, which includes a good 85% or so of the people enrolling). Two states moved from their own websites over to Healthcare.Gov; one did the opposite; and still others have a "split decision" where you visit one site for individual/family policies and another for small business policies.
Over at The New Republic, Jonathan Cohn has a must-read which summarizes, state-by-state, just how ugly things could get if the Supreme Court 1) does indeed rule in favor of the plaintiffs in King v. Burwell; 2) does rule that all ACA tax credits in the 36 states not running their own marketplaces (or possibly as low as 34 or as high as 37, depending on how the court defines "NOT established by the state") have to stop immediately; and 3) neither my own "Denny's Grand Slam Breakfast" solution nor the "State Exchange Two-Step" workarounds end up coming to fruition.
