The Massachusetts Health Connector board held their monthly meeting today, which included an updated enrollment report which is chock-full of all sorts of data-nerd charts and graphs; a bonanza for folks like myself. Best of all, it runs all the way through 3/31, making the the most up-to-date report I have for any state at the moment.
Tax Experts Team Up with Covered California To Urge the Uninsured To Get Health Care Coverage
More Than 18,000 Californians Have Taken Advantage of Limited Special-Enrollment Opportunity; Consumers Are Encouraged to Sign Up by April 30
...“The Affordable Care Act is clear: All who can afford health insurance must buy it, and the good news is that it is more affordable than ever before,” said Covered California Executive Director Peter V. Lee. “It’s important for Californians without health coverage to sign up now to avoid the increasing tax penalty they will face in 2015 if they remain uninsured.”
Lee said that more than 18,000 consumers have taken advantage of the special-enrollment opportunity since it began Feb. 23.
I'll be on vacation most of Passover/Easter week. If something really important happens I'll try to post about it, but otherwise don't expect much until Friday the 10th.
Chag Semeach and Happy Easter to those who celebrate!
I don't know who D E Wells is, but this made my day, week and possibly my month. A special thank you to Rachel Karas for bringing it to my attention. Watch, learn and enjoy:
The state Legislature has killed a $69 million tax on health-insurance policies proposed by Gov. Cuomo to pay for the administrative costs of continuing New York’s ObamaCare exchange, The Post has learned.
Cuomo’s office initially said the levy — which would have cost about $25 per policy — was needed to make up for federal funds no longer available to cover operating expenses of the New York Health Exchange under the Affordable Care Act.
But lawmakers balked, arguing the new tax was counterintuitive to the goal of making health insurance more affordable.
As for how the NY exchange will be funded, apparently it may just be a matter of shifting $69 million in existing funds over from somewhere else:
The industry’s spokeswoman said revenues from existing state taxes on health insurance — totalling more than $5 billion and amounting to 5 percent of premiums — could easily cover the $68.9 million cost to operate the New York Health Exchange.
Some of my projections/estimates I'm pretty confident in. Others are more shaky, and once in awhile I'm just doing the best I can given extremely vague, partial data to work with. And when it comes to unknown factors, I make that point as clear as I can.
On March 15, the first day of the #ACATaxTime special enrollment period, I stated the following:
...aside from the King v. Burwell SCOTUS decision (which isn't expected until sometime in June), the other Big Mystery is just how many people a) qualify for the #ACATaxTime SEP, and b) how many of those will actually enroll during this (roughly) 6-week period.
After a TON of patching together data points here and there and discussing/debating the factors with other healthcare wonks/reporters, I stated:
Well, that was anticlimactic. After weeks of me whining about the lack of post-Open Enrollment data, Healthcare.Gov has finally stated (sort of buried in the middle of a press release) that around 36,000 additional people had enrolled via Healthcare.Gov as of March 29th via the Tax Filing Season Special Enrollment Period (aka #ACATaxTime):
As of March 29, about 36,000 consumers have selected plans using the tax special enrollment period in States using the Federally-facilitated Marketplace.
Now, all of those bold-faced phrases are important, because the actual Tax Filing Season SEP didn't start until 3/15, and this doesn't include any of the 14 state-based exchanges (really only 11 of them, though, since 3 states aren't offering #ACATaxTime). Also, from the exact wording, this does not include those who enrolled via "Qualifying Life Events" (ie, getting married/divorced, giving birth/adopting a child, moving to a new state, losing your existing coverage and so on).
Hey, journalism and political spinmeisters! Here's a great example of what not to do (if you're the former) and what to do (if you're the latter)!
Check out this story from the Detroit News about the success of Michigan's implementation of the Medicaid expansion provision of the Affordable Care Act, aka "Healthy Michigan":
Detroit — On the eve of the first anniversary of the Healthy Michigan Plan, Gov. Rick Snyder said Tuesday more than 603,000 Michiganians have enrolled since the expanded Medicaid Program launched on April 1, 2014.
Mazel Tov!! Over 600,000 Michiganders enrolled in a program enabled by and paid for by Obamacare! I'm sure they'll mention that in the 2nd paragraph, right?
The number exceeds by more than 100,000 people the two-year enrollment projections made prior to the program’s launch. The Healthy Michigan Plan provides health insurance to low-income working people for a minimal cost.
The short version is that she asked people to chime in with their "Obamacare Horror Stories" only to find that the response included a flood of "Obamacare is Awesome!!" stories.
Anyway, today she responded to the flood of positive tales by basically saying that those are mostly about the parts of the ACA which Republicans like, and therefore "don't count" for some reason or another:
Who can sign up?
The special enrollment period is for people who are uninsured now, have not had coverage at all in 2015, paid a tax penalty for not having coverage last year, and didn’t find out about that penalty until they did their taxes.
People in that situation can sign up for private insurance plans through Access Health CT, the state’s health insurance exchange, from April 1 through April 30. (People who qualify for Medicaid can sign up at any point in the year.)
When will the coverage start?
People who sign up by April 15 will receive coverage starting May 1. Those who sign up from April 16 through April 30 will receive coverage beginning June 1.
