Hmmm...ok, it looks like I'll have to drop my "QHPs selected as a percent of determinations" rule of thumb back a bit. I figured that MA would be up to around 88K by today; instead they're just below 86,000. Still impressive, though...and the 160K Medicaid enrollments are equally so.
In addition, the payment rate is now up to 72% of the total, up from around 65% a couple of weeks ago. Again, remember that many of these 86K are for February start dates, so the payment rate is a bit misleading (for instance, it's possible that 60K out of 67K January enrollees have paid so far (90%) while only 2K out of 19K February enrollees have paid (11%), or something along those lines).
Again, it's also worth noting that in addition to the 86K QHPs selected, there's another 5,511 waiting for checkout and another 76K people who have filled out all their info and been approved for QHP coverage, but who haven't actually selected a policy yet. Some of these may be duplicates or abandoned accounts, of course, but assuming, say, 80% of them eventually do complete the process, that would bring Massachusetts up to a minimum of 151K QHPs by Feb. 15th. If 90% do so, that's a minimum of 159K...and that doesn't include the additional people who start/complete the process over the 40 days remaining in the enrollment period.
My most recent data for PA's "Healthy PA" program (their implementation of the ACA's Medicaid expansion provision) was 118K, so I wasn't going to post on this today, but a subsequent update says that the actual number is higher still, at 134,000:
State officials estimate that as of January 1, 2015 about 600,000 Pennsylvanians became eligible for Medicaid through its newly expanded Healthy Pennsylvaniaoption.
Enrollment began last month, and as of Monday, a spokesperson reported the state had received at least 114,000 household applications (it's unclear how many came from people who were previously uninsured).
.@sangerkatz just got another update - # of household applications for #HealthyPAwent up to 134K (unclear how many previously uninsured).
The Lancet is a weekly peer-reviewed general medical journal. It is among the world's oldest, most prestigious, and best known general medical journals.
The Lancet was founded in 1823 by Thomas Wakley, an English surgeon who named it after the surgical instrument called a lancet, as well as after the architectural term "lancet arch", a window with a sharp pointed arch, to indicate the "light of wisdom" or "to let in light".
The Lancet publishes original research articles, review articles ("seminars" and "reviews"), editorials, book reviews, correspondence, as well as news features and case reports. The Lancet has been owned by Elsevier since 1991. As of 2015, the editor-in-chief is Richard Horton. The journal has editorial offices in London, New York, and Beijing.
LA Times reporter Chris Megerian has posted an important story about California's looming healthcare budget crisis. It mostly deals with the headaches facing the state budget as it tackles major increases in both Medi-Cal (CA's name for Medicaid) and the cost of caring for public employee retirees, and is a good read for healthcare/budget wonks.
What caught my eye, however, was this line about halfway through:
Over the next year, total Medi-Cal enrollment is expected to reach 12.2 million, he said — about one-third of the state's population. It was less than 8 million in 2013.
Hmmm...that sounds a bit high to me, so I ran the numbers against my own current estimates and came up with the following:
Updating Oregon's QHP total does nothing to change the overall tally this year because they're operating on HC.gov now. It is useful to keep a running total on the state, however. In addition, Oregon is the only state (so far) providing hard numbers for off-exchange QHP enrollments.
Members enrolled, Nov. 15-Jan. 4
On Healthcare.gov 81,037
Outside of Healthcare.gov 62,678
Total 143,715
About the data: Enrolled means a person has selected a plan. Consumers must pay the first month's premium for their coverage to become effective. These numbers do not identify whether the first month's premium has been paid. These numbers do not include Oregonians enrolled in the Oregon Health Plan (Medicaid).
Cornyn predicted the King v. Burwell case that will be argued before the Supreme Court in March will end up going a long way towards undoing the law.
The court will decide whether the law allows people participating in the federally run health care exchange to get subsidies. A decision denying the subsidies would significantly undermine the law.
“What I expect is that the Supreme Court is going to render a body blow to Obamacare from which I don’t think it will ever recover,” Cornyn said.
The 980K confirmed by the 14 assorted state-run exchanges,
The unreported renewals (both active and automatic) from California & New York, and
Another roughly 150,000 scattered amongst all 50 states & DC since the date of their most recent updates until today (which varies from as little as 1 day to as much as 25 days in the case of Idaho).
If you do the math, you'll see that the biggest missing piece here is the 3rd item above: Covered California and New York State of Health have, to date, still refused to give out any re-enrollment/renewal data for 2014 QHP enrollees. Not just autorenewal numbers, but active renewals as well.
At long last (well, by my standards anyway), the Washington State exchange has released updated enrollment numbers, and the results are...well, kind of all over the place.
First up, of course, is the private QHP enrollment figure:
OLYMPIA, Wash. – Washington Healthplanfinder today announced that more than 107,000 residents have signed up or renewed their Qualified Health Plan through wahealthplanfinder.org for coverage that started on Jan. 1. Approximately 26 percent of current Qualified Health Plan enrollees have signed up through Washington Healthplanfinder for the first time.
In addition, 471,602 new adults have accessed coverage through Washington Apple Health (Medicaid). The total number of residents who are currently enrolled under Medicaid expansion and in Qualified Health Plans totals nearly 580,000.
...Currently, 60 percent of customers who were enrolled in 2014 coverage have taken action to renew their coverage for 2015. Any remaining customers must return to their online account or contact the toll-free Customer Support Center to reconfirm their eligibility for financial help, select a health plan and submit their payment.
That's another 2,489 QHP determinations. Again, assume 50% of them followed through and selected a plan and that's at least 1,200 more added, bringing the likely total up to around 87,600 QHP selections to date, plus 160,824 confirmed Medicaid enrollees.
Last week I noted that if the Supreme Court rules in favor of the plaintiffs in the King v. Burwell case (challenging the IRS tax credits given to over 85% of enrollees via the Federal exchange, Healthcare.Gov), around 7 million people would have their tax credits yanked away.
Of these, I figured that perhaps 5-6 million are receiving substantial credits--that is, a family making $90,000/year would be among those 7M, but they'd only be getting perhaps $5 - $10/month in credits, so losing a couple hundred dollars a year would be annoying, but not devastating.
However, I also noted that in addition to the 5-6M who would be directly impacted, there would also likely be a major ripple/domino effect which would seriously impact others in those states as well, even those who aren't receiving the credits themselves:
