For Massachusetts Health Connector’s Board of Directors, which is meeting today, the key question is: How bad do things have to be – and for how long – before the consequence is a brutal decision?
CGI, which has been responsible for development, failed to deliver a working website. Worse than that: after three months, there is still no indication that CGI has the competency required to fix the website.
We’re seeing many types of outreach efforts to reach the uninsured. Navigators are doing their utmost (at least in states where their work is not being obstructed), and many church groups are addressing their congregations. Nevada has mounted a concerted door-to-door effort. Here are the results, as reported by Allison Bell.
Exchange managers want the canvassers to reach 450,800 people who seem likely to need individual or family health insurance. Mi Familia Vota says it made 53,052 total attempts from Nov. 1 through Dec. 31. The organization’s workers talked to people in 7,935 homes, or 18 percent of the homes in the target area, and generated 661 enrollment appointment leads. The canvassers found 8,377 households were inaccessible, and no one was home in 33,875. In 5,596, the residents already had health coverage. In 806 of the homes, residents refused to talk to the canvassers.
We’ve already dealt with Oregon’s recently updated enrollment numbers, but this bit of news from Nick Budnick’s article in The Oregonian the other day really caught my attention:
About half of those who applied for coverage effective Jan 1 were turned away because their applications were not fully filled out, state officials have said. Instead, they'll be processed for insurance effective Feb. 1.
If Oracle had delivered a working website to Cover Oregon, then online applicants would immediately have received feedback that they needed to fill in more information. Clearly this is an added source of frustration for Oregonians who had every reason to think that their paper application was complete and in order.
On the other hand, this speaks to a huge potential. If Cover Oregon can assist those 20,000 applicants quickly, that alone should double the state’s enrollment numbers! Who knows – with dedication and luck, Cover Oregon might well achieve that before the end of January.
No new private enrollment numbers, but Rhode Island's Medicaid expansion jumped from 6,627 at the end of November to 19,941 as of yesterday. For some reason the article claims a "quadrupling" from 5,280, but the official HHS number for 11/30 is 6,627, so I'm not sure what that's about (they also claim the quadrupling was "in December" even though the same number shows up as being "through Wednesday" which was January 8th).
In any event, a nice Medicaid bump (or a horrific one, depending on your POV) for Rhode Island.
The number of Medicaid enrollments through HealthSource RI totaled 19,941 as of Wednesday, with an additional 1,500 sign-ups pending, David Burnett, chief of government and public affairs at the R.I. Executive Office of Health & Human Services, revealed Wednesday in response to a request from WPRI.com.
The number of Medicaid sign-ups on HealthSource RI roughly quadrupled in December, jumping from 5,280 to 19,941, amid a drumbeat of publicity about deadlines to get coverage under President Obama's new health law.
The prior MA update was extremely confusing; this one is more straightforward but is still pretty fuzzy. As far as I can tell, Massachusetts increased their private enrollments by 24% from Dec. 30 to Jan. 7...but that only brings them up from 3,759 to 4,676. There's another 22,000 or so enrollments in semi-limbo which appear to be approved but not fully processed due to the technical problems they continue to have.
The Republican/MassLive.com previously reported that as of Dec. 30, only 497 people were enrolled in permanent subsidized health insurance plans. The state was providing temporary insurance for another 22,000 new enrollees while it worked to process their applications. The state had extended coverage for existing customers of its Commonwealth Care plans through March 31.
Lefferts said that as of Jan. 7, 4,676 people enrolled in both subsidized and unsubsidized plans through the Health Connector, up from 3,759 as of Dec. 30. He did not have a breakdown of how many of those were subsidized. Individuals whose plans are not subsidized have until Friday to pay their premiums, so that number is likely to tick up.
Pretty slim pickings here on the private enrollment front (up just 141 assuming "slightly more than 26K" = 26,001), but the Medicaid number is up 9.6% to 45,981.
Despite MNsure's problems, so far 71,982 people have signed up for insurance coverage through the exchange. According to newly released demographic details, 53 percent are women and the median age is 48. The largest number signed up for mid-level "silver" plans — about 35 percent of total enrollees. Of those nearly 72,000 enrollees, slightly more than 26,000 signed up for private insurance while the rest are on public plans.
Some interesting numbers out of Washington State. While private enrollments are only up 6% over 12/23 (143,383 vs. 135,078; the % paid as of 01/02 has increased from 48% to 52%), the Medicaid numbers are quite different, due to changes in how they're being reported.
Previously, "Newly Eligible" and "Previously Eligible" were lumped in together with "Redeterminations" (ie, people who were already on Medicaid prior to ACA expansion and are simply renewing their accounts). However, WA is the only state (so far) to list "redeterminations" separately, so I've left those out this week. With all the concern and confusion about how many ACA enrollees are "new" to having healthcare coverage, this seems like a wise move. Of course, this also means that the Medicaid total is actually somewhat lower than I had it previously, even with the additional new enrollees since 12/23.
As a result, the total Medicaid number for WA is now 177,065 vs. the previous 194,398, a "drop" of 17,333. The new number is lower, but more accurate reflection of the actual impact of the ACA on Medicaid...in 1 state. Hopefully other states (and the HHS) will start separating out "redeterminations" going forward as well, if possible.
The problems with the Obama Administration’s rollout of HealthCare.gov are reminiscent of the troubled rollout of the Medicare Part D expansion under President George W. Bush. In a candid interview with Kaiser Health News, former Health and Human Services Secretary Michael O. Leavitt offers telling details of their technical problems – and the Bush Administration’s solution.
…people were walking up to the pharmacy counter to get their drugs and their name wasn’t in the computer. Ultimately, we had to say, ‘give them their drugs, and we’ll work it out later.’ Then we spent 15 or 18 months working it out later. It was an expensive proposition and less than ideal. But it allowed the limited number of people who were having problems with the system to have their human needs met.”
By contrast, the Obama Administration has spent just over three months working out glitches of HealthCare.gov, which was launched on October 1st, 2013. Perhaps after 15–18 months have passed, we can do a more complete comparison with President George W. Bush’s rollout of Medicare Part D?
We have our 3rd Oregon update this week today; they're now up to 20,000 private enrollments as of Monday, plus another 35,000 Medicaid expansion additions. Add this to the 114,500 automatic enrollments via the Oregon Health Authority, and that brings their total Medicaid tally to 149,500.
In total, about 170,000 people have new health insurance beginning this month under new funding and rules of the Affordable Care Act. A majority of them are Oregon Health Plan enrollees, a program for low-income residents...
Monday was the last day for Oregonians to finalize their commercial plan selections on Cover Oregon. Of the 55,000, about 20,000 new enrollees purchased private plans. About 35,000 enrolled in Oregon Health Plan through Cover Oregon, and the majority of the new OHP enrollees signed up directly through Oregon Health Authority.
The Nevada ACA exchange, which apparently only uses Twitter for press releases, just announced that private enrollments have gone up from 12,745 as of 12/23 to 17,673 as of January 4th, a 38% increase.
They're also one of only 3 states to specify paid vs. unpaid status so far; they've gone from 49% paid as of 12/23 to 60% paid (10,647) as of 1/4.
Update as of 1/4: 915,977 unique individuals visited Nevada Health Link. 17,673 consumers confirmed QHP selections, 10,547 have paid.
