You don't hear a whole lot about the other ACA healthcare exchange system, the Small Business Health Options Program (SHOP, although it should really be "SBHOP" which looks like a typo). In fact, to my knowledge, the HHS Dept. has never said a peep about the SHOP numbers in any of their official reports or press releases. There's a reason.
Rhode Island just made an announcement about their SHOP program. RI only has a total population of just over 1.05 million people anyway. so 3,500 people enrolled in the state's Small Business exchange policies actually isn't too bad, really (for comparison, this would be the equivalent of California enrolling around 128,000 people in theirs).
One, from CNN Money, took an alarmist stance in the headline, but the article itself--while still angled towards the high increase end--was technically accurate.
The second, from Capital New York, was more complete and accurate including the proper context (it included all companies and weighted them by market share, as opposed to partial, skewed data). It also had a less sexy, but far more accurate headline.
There's also a third way to present the story: Making crap up, aka lying about it.
Thanks to commentor "pilon" for the head's up on this silliness from some right-wing outfit called the "Washington Policy Center" (I'm not gonna link to them, but I'll include the URL in the screen shot):
Over the past couple of weeks, I've posted a bunch of entries both here and over at healthinsurance.org about not freaking out when you see "OMG!!! MASSIVE OBAMACARE RATE HIKES NEXT YEAR WE'RE ALL GONNA DIIIIIIIIE!!!"-style headlines such as this giant one from CNN Money:
The angle being played is emphasized right off the bat with the big, scary-looking graphic above the story:
Even the sub-headline pushes the hair-on-fire meme:
While everyone is waiting for the King v. Burwell decision to come out in a few weeks, the CMS Dept. has quietly released their latest monthly Medicaid/CHIP enrollment report...which happens to line up almost perfectly with what I was expecting:
Nearly 71.1 million individuals were enrolled in Medicaid and CHIP in March 2015. This enrollment count is point-in-time (on the last day of the month) and includes all enrollees in the Medicaid and CHIP programs who are receiving a comprehensive benefit package.
534,845 additional people were enrolled in March 2015 as compared to February 2015 in the 51 states that reported comparable March and February 2015 data.
Looking at the additional enrollment since October 2013 when the initial Marketplace open enrollment period began, among the 49 states reporting both March 2015 enrollment data and data from July-September of 2013, over 12.2 million additional individuals are enrolled in Medicaid and CHIP as of March 2015, an approximately 21.2 percent increase over the average monthly enrollment for July through September of 2013.9 (Connecticut and Maine are not included in this count.)
With the latest official enrollment data out of the CMS division of the HHS Dept., I've had to make some modifications to The Graph to make it more accurate.
First, here's the old version, updated through yesterday (click either one to load full-size version in new browser window):
Yesterday's giant data dump from the CMS division of the HHS Dept. noted that as of March 31st, 2015, 6,387,790 people were receiving APTC (Advance Premium Tax Credits) across the 34 states at risk of losing those credits due to the King v. Burwell court case. That's the number of people who were actively enrolled in paid-for, effectuated policies as of 3/31/15. Fair enough.
I've gone ahead and plugged the actual 3/31/15 effectuated enrollment numbers for each individual state into the spreadsheet so I can compare them against my own estimate for that state. Below is how it turned out. As you can see, overall I was pretty damned close: 10.08 million vs. 10.19 million, a difference of around 110,000 people, or just 1.05%. Better yet, I underestimated the effectuated enrollments by a smidge (much better than overestimating them).
However, there's an important caveat to keep in mind: The CMS numbers are as of March 31, while my own estimates are projections as of July 1st, the first day which the tax credits could potentially be removed.
With all that done, here's the state-by-state breakdown of how many people I expect will be receiving federal tax credits for their ACA exchange-purchased healthcare policy as of July 1st, 2015:
March 2015: Average Advanced Premium Tax Credit by State
Consumers with household incomes between 100 percent and 400 percent of the FPL may qualify for an advance premium tax credit, which helps make their coverage more affordable throughout the year by lowering their share of monthly premium costs. Consumers who qualify for APTC may choose how much of the advanced premium tax credit to apply to their premiums each month, up to the maximum amount for which they are eligible.
This actually isn't as much of a surprise to me as you might think. Between the increased transparency during the 2nd Open Enrollment Period (weekly state-by-state snapshot reports for HC.gov) and especially with the King v. Burwell Supreme Court decision coming up later this month, I was expecting HHS to release some sort of update about just how many people are currently enrolled in exchange-based private policies...in particular, the number who are receiving Advance Premium Tax Credits across the 34 states at risk of losing theirs.
