Thanks to top contributor deaconblues for jumping back into the game and providing me with a whole batch of updates this evening. First up, the DC exchange, which posted their first update in 2 months:
From October 1, 2013 to September 9, 2014, 57,883 people have enrolled through DC Health Link in private health plans or Medicaid:
14,402 people enrolled in private health plans through the DC Health Link individual and family marketplace. 14,289 people enrolled through the DC Health Link small business marketplace. 29,192 people were determined eligible for Medicaid coverage through DC Health Link.
That's an increase of 1,872 QHPs, 510 new SHOP enrollees and 4,472 more Medicaid additions to date.
A federal judge in Oklahoma ruled Tuesday that Obamacare subsidies provided on the federal HealthCare.gov exchange are invalid, agreeing with a ruling by a three-judge D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals panel against the subsidies.
The ruling, along with the fallout from the D.C. Circuit decision, could be a potentially significant defeat for the Obama administration.
On the one hand, this development probably makes it more likely that the SCOTUS will end up taking on the Halbig case (from the DC Circuit Court) after all (and/or the King case from the 4th Circuit...all three appear to focus on pretty much the same "federal exchange vs. state exchange" issue).
Key Republicans running for election Nov. 4 say the federal Affordable Care Act is putting Kentuckians out of work, but employment data and interviews with Kentucky-based economists suggest otherwise.
...Factually, the claim doesn't appear to be accurate. Kentucky had 26,271 more people working last month than it did in March 2010 when President Barack Obama signed the Affordable Care Act into law, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. The state's unemployment rate in that same period fell from 10.5 percent to 7.1 percent.
Manoj Shanker, an economist at the Kentucky Office of Employment and Training, said the health care law "is expected to be a net gain for the economy."
"It is definitely expected to create jobs, and not just for doctors and nurses," Shanker said.
...About 3,600 additional health care jobs were created over the last year in Kentucky as places such as Perry County...saw the percentages of their population without health insurance drop from as high as 20 percent to no more than 8 percent.
Still no Medicaid update since 8/13, but Oregon's total QHP figure is up another 687 since 9/22, while NET QHPs are down 696, giving an overall attrition rate since the peak in mid-July of around 2.3% per month. Note that the net current enrollment figure is still 14% higher than the last official HHS report tally of 68,308:
September 29, 2014
Update: Private coverage and Oregon Health Plan enrollment through Cover Oregon
Medical enrollments through Cover Oregon: 354,958 Total private medical insurance enrollments through Cover Oregon: 102,596
Oregon Health Plan enrollments through Cover Oregon: 252,362*
*OHP enrollment data is current as of August 13, 2014. An updated number will be posted soon.
WASHINGTON—Hundreds of thousands of Americans face a Tuesday deadline to verify their income and are at risk of losing or having to pay back their federal health-insurance subsidies under the Affordable Care Act.
The need for people to pay back the government could become a headache during next year's tax season, when Americans are expected to pay back any subsidies they weren't eligible for.
The Obama administration has told more than 300,000 individuals who obtained coverage through the federal HealthCare.gov site that they may lose some or all of the subsidies if they don't provide additional income information that jibes with Internal Revenue Service data. That information includes tax returns, wages and tax statements, pay stubs and letters from employers.
This morning I introduced an all-new, cleaned-up version of The Graph which only includes commercial policy enrollments via the ACA (exchange QHPs, plus references to off-exchange QHPs, ACA-enabled ESIs and sub26er enrollees), projected out through Nov. 15th (when the whole process starts all over again).
Now I've added the other half of the revamped graph: ACA-enabled Medicaid/CHIP enrollments. Like the QHP graph, there are 3 color-coded sections, but in this case they represent "Strict ACA Expansion" (people who are only eligible for Medicaid/CHIP due to the income provisions within the law in half the states); "Bulk Transfers" (ie, transferred from existing state-run programs such as LIHP in California, Commonwealth Care in Massachusetts, etc. due to ACA provisions) and "Woodworkers" (people who were already eligible for Medicaid prior to the expansion provisions, but who never enrolled before due to either being unaware of their eligibility, not understanding the process, etc). "Woodworkers" are folks who have been "drawn out of the woodwork" since last October thanks to a robust outreach program by the government and affiliated nonprofits, as well as a streamlined enrollment process and other measures.
QHPs are up another 183, Medicaid 5,242 and MinnesotaCare (which is a little bit like high-end Medicaid, from what I can tell) is up another 1,160 over the past 7 days:
latest enrollment numbers
September 28, 2014
Health Coverage Type Cumulative Enrollments
Medical Assistance 212,331
MinnesotaCare 74,609
Qualified Health Plan (QHP) 55,001
TOTAL 341,941
OK, I'll be frank, this has little to do with the Affordable Care Act itself. Michigan's state legislature has already (grudgingly) passed the ACA's Medicaid expansion program (we call it "Healthy Michigan" here, and it's been very successful).
In other words, the only directly ACA-related items likely to come up over the next couple of years are presumably a) continuing support for Medicaid expansion (not sure if it has to be renewed annually or what) and b) the outside possibility of voting on establishing our own ACA health insurance exchange in the event that the Halbig/King cases end up being upheld by the SCOTUS.
Having said that, if you support me and the work I'm doing here, I'd like to ask a personal favor of you: Please help out the woman running for representative in Michigan's 40th state house district, Mary Belden.
Louise Norris of HealthInsurance.org has posted a couple of fantastic articles the past week or so. First up is an explanation of why most current healthcare policies weren't cancelled...which is to say, the insurance companies cancelled most of them for different reasons than what ACA critics are claiming:
But AV is just one of numerous factors involved in compliance with the ACA. There were many other reasons that existing plans were not compatible with the law. Of particular importance, less than 2 percent of the individual health plans in existence in early 2013 provided coverage for all ten of the ACA’s mandatory essential health benefits.
...So when policies are being cancelled and replaced with ACA-compliant coverage, AV isn’t likely to be the primary culprit. Virtually no individual policies that were in effect prior to 2014 are compliant with the ACA, for a host of reasons other than AV.
Hmmm...now this is interesting. Yesterday it was brought to my attention via Twitter that the Covered California website (or at least the actual off-season enrollment portion of it) had been offline for "2+ weeks". Sure enough, when I took a look for myself, after clicking past the home page, the enrollment section had a message saying that it was offline for maintenance but that I should "check back on September 15th". Of course, seeing how it was Sept. 28th when I read this, that suggests that the maintenance started sometime before the 15th and continued well past the estimated completion date.
@CoveredCA website has been down for 2+ weeks. What are people supposed to do? At least update your home page. #ACASignups#CoveredCA
OK, I'll be frank, this has little to do with the Affordable Care Act itself. Michigan's state legislature has already (grudgingly) passed the ACA's Medicaid expansion program (we call it "Healthy Michigan" here, and it's been very successful).
