The Washington Health Benefit Exchange is alerting residents today that only a few hours remain to sign up for health coverage throughwahealthplanfinder.org that goes into effect on Jan. 1. Customers have until tomorrow, Dec. 23 to select a Qualified Health Plan that begins at the start of the New Year.
As of Monday evening, 162,000 Washingtonians have selected Qualified Health Plans through Washington Healthplanfinder.
While the deadline for Jan. 1 coverage extends to 11:59 p.m. on Dec. 23, the Exchange is advising customers to select plans by 10 p.m. that evening and avoid the expected heavy online traffic. Customers who sign up after that time may be asked to take additional steps on the way to having their coverage confirmed.
September 30, 2015 Effectuated Enrollment Snapshot
On September 30, 2015, about 9.3 million consumers had effectuated Health Insurance Marketplace coverage – which means those individuals paid their premiums and had an active policy at the end of September. HHS’s effectuated enrollment projection continues to be 9.1 million people for the end of 2015.
I launched the "State by State" chart feature towards the end of the 2015 Open Enrollment period last time around, and it proved to be pretty popular, so I've brought it back this year.
It's important to note that I'm still missing data from some state exchanges; I have bupkis from DC, Idaho, Kentucky, New York and Vermont. I also only have partial data from others (California includes new enrollees only, while several other states only have data for the first couple of weeks).
With all those caveats out of the way, here's where things stand. Just like last year:
As I expected, the Week Seven numbers were a bit confusing due to a) the deadline surge; b) the 2-day extension of the deadline and especially c) the auto-renewal factor. While "the vast majority" of auto-renewals (2.28 million of them) were already added to the Week Seven total, CMS says that there are still "some" auto-renewals yet to be added. I wasn't expecting them to spill auto-renewals over into the following week, so things are kind of messy this week.
In addition, while these won't impact the federal exchange numbers, several state-based exchanges (Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New York, Rhode Island and Washington State) have/had January deadlines later than the 12/17 one on the federal exchange and some other states, so there's a lot of bumpy numbers going into Week Eight.
As I note every week, between Rhode Island's tiny population, tinier ACA exchange numbers and especially their decision to "front-load" autorenewals of all current enrollees ahead of the 12/23 deadline for January coverage, their official QHP selection tally is only going up a few hundred per week. Week Seven is no diffferent:
INDIVIDUAL AND FAMILY ENROLLMENT As of December 19, 2015:
Update 12/18/15: Not really an update so much as a clarification: I'm guessing active QHP selections for this week via HC.gov could run anywhere between 1.0 - 2.0 million, plus another 2.5 - 3.5 million automatic renewals, for a weekly total of between 3.5 - 5.5 million.
Yesterday I noted that while Connecticut hasn't posted any enrollment updates since 11/17, a recent news article was very promising.
Today, Access Health CT did indeed post an official update, and while the numbers are quite good, they also have to be pulled apart a bit:
LT. GOV. WYMAN, ACCESS HEALTH CEO JIM WADLEIGH ANNOUNCE MIDENROLLMENT NUMBERS FOR AHCT
Over 34,000 New Customers Sign Up Through AHCT Hartford, Conn.
(December 22, 2015) – Lieutenant Governor Nancy Wyman, Chair of the Board of Access Health CT (AHCT) and Access Health CT CEO Jim Wadleigh today announced that over 34,000 new Connecticut customers have enrolled in quality, affordable coverage since November 1, 2015.
You know you’re in trouble when more people purchased Beyoncé CD than signed up for Obamacare…
— MATT DRUDGE (@DRUDGE) December 29, 2013
Beyonce’s surprise album sold 991,000 copies in less than two weeks through Dec. 22, according to Billboard. The White House is trumpeting its 1.1 million sign-ups on healthcare.gov through Christmas Eve, of which 975,000 came in December.
Yes, because it's incredibly surprising that more people shelled out $13 to buy a new album from one of the most popular entertainers of the decade than happened to enroll in a private health insurance policy.
In equally shocking news, more people also ate at McDonalds and more tubes of toothpaste were sold that month as well.
The Connecticut ACA exchange, AccessHealthCT, hasn't given out any official OE3 enrollment updates since November 17th. At the time, their official number appeared to be absurdly high because, like Rhode Island and Massachusetts, CT decided to "front-load" their auto-renewals up front. This is purely a record-keeping/reporting thing, because any of those who have been auto-renewed could still cancel their renewals at any time before January, so it doesn't really impact what the final number ends up being.
Anyway, as of 11/17, Connecticut's official tally was 93,657 current enrollees renewing (either actively or automatically), plus another 5,470 new additions, for a total of 99,127.
Of course, not only does this number not include a solid month's worth of data, the final week of that missing period was last week's mid-December deadline surge. Unlike HC.gov and several other states, CT did not extend their 12/15 deadline for January coverage, although of course residents still have until 1/15 to sign up for February coverage, and until 1/31 to get covered starting in March.
After a bunch of Republican debates in which the ACA in particular and healthcare in general was barely touched upon, and only a minor mention or two of either during the first two Democratic debates, the ACA was finally front and center for one brief, glorious moment during last night's New Hampshire Democratic Primary Debate on ABC.
Unfortunately, when I was actually watching the debate, I got distracted by something and as a result, most of Hillary and Bernie's responses sounded quite solid. However, upon re-watching/reading the transcript, I'm actually kind of...disappointed by both of them, for different reasons (which is particularly stunning given that healthcare reform is such a major part of both of their platforms).
RADDATZ: And we're going to move on to health care.
