I have a ton of ACA-related stories cluttering up my in-box again; here's some of the more interesting ones, all regarding ACA Medicaid Expansion:
MICHIGAN:
For months now, I've been a bit obsessed with figuring out how my home state's Medicaid expansion enrollment has managed to reach as high as 21% more people than were supposedly even eligible for the program. Estimates last year ranged from 477,000 - 500,000, yet enrollment in Healthy Michigan (Gov. Snyder's name for Obamacare Medicaid Expansion) currently sits at a whopping 579K, less than 1 year into the program.
The good news is that MNsure is continuing to provide off-season enrollment reports. The only bummer is that they appear to have switched to monthly reports, but I guess I can live with that:
Latest Enrollment Numbers
March 12, 2015
MNsure provides a robust enrollment metrics summary to the MNsure Board of Directors at each regularly-scheduled board meeting. This page will be updated on board meeting days.
Health Coverage Type Cumulative Enrollments
Medical Assistance 90,839
MinnesotaCare 31,070 Qualified Health Plan (QHP) 61,109
TOTAL 183,018
Unlike today's DC update, which seems highly questionable due to the "...since Oct. 2013" wording, MNsure's report only includes 2015 enrollments, and the numbers, while still impressive, are much more reasonable.
From October 1, 2013 to March 8, 2015, 89,852 people have enrolled in health insurance coverage through DC Health Link in private insurance or Medicaid:
21,784 people enrolled in a private qualified health plan,
52,115 people have been determined eligible for Medicaid, and
15,953 people enrolled through the DC Health Link small business marketplace (includes Congressional enrollment).
Hmmmm...that "From 10/1/13" clarification is a bit concerning, especially since the official 2015 QHP total as of 2/21/15 was just 18,465. I find it difficult to believe that DC would have increased their QHP enrollment by 18% in just 19 off-season days, but perhaps there was a clerical error or something. I'll likely have to correct this later on, but I'll leave it be for now.
It's also noteworthy that they're officially acknowledging the huge impact that Congressional staffers have on their SHOP enrollments.
UPDATED 3/20/15: Yay! The HHS Dept. has confirmed that yes, they'll release "some enrollment data" the week of March 23rd...but it's still not a full response; see my post about it.
Dear Andy Slavitt, Kevin Counihan and Sec. Burwell:
Don't get me wrong, I was thrilled when you started breaking HC.gov enrollments down weekly, and was especially happy when the state-by-state breakdowns were provided! Awesome! That's the main reason I started this project in the first place, because of the lack of data transparency during the 2014 enrollment period!
We're in a bit of an in-between phase this week. Open Enrollment is officially over, and the Tax Season special enrollment period doesn't start until Sunday in most states.
However, the Massachusetts Health Connector has provided me with a handy report which gives some interesting drill-down data. Most of it is stuff I don't really track anyway, but some of it I do and the rest may be of interest to some. I'm only focusing on a few items, the PDF itself has a bunch more:
CLARIFICATION 3/15/15: No, I don't have any hard proof that anyone has done this or that anyone will do so. For all I know, not a single person has done this. I'm just saying that it's a) easy to do, b) perfectly legal (how do you know for certain what your expected income will be in the future?) and furthermore, c) not unethical, as you'd have to be in pretty dire straits to do this, as shown below.
There's not a huge amount of position shifting here (other than Hawaii), but with today's final official ASPE enrollment report for 2015 Open Enrollment having been released, it seems appropriate to do this one more time:
2015 vs. 2014:
The biggest change here is that Hawaii is no longer near the top of the list due to the confusing report from the HI exchange a few weeks back. Otherwise, aside from Massachusetts (special case) and Maryland (these are the only 2 exchanges to overhaul their prior tech platform with new ones while remaining self-contained), DC is the only "state" exchange in the top third. The other state exchanges are all down at the bottom.
Why? Two reasons: First, 3 of the states (CO, RI & WA) are only listing paid enrollments (or at least are purging past-due unpaid selections before submitting their data to HHS). Secondly, because HC.gov has simply caught up this year after being smoked the last time around.
HAWAII: I was assured 8 ways from Sunday that Hawaii's23,000 enrollee figure was specifically for 2015 enrollment. This made no sense to me given their tiny enrollment last year, but I was assured of it. Well, apparently my original instincts were correct, because they're showing up with only 12,625 in the end.
IDAHO: This is the only state which hasn't given their own enrollment update in forever. According to the prior ASPE report, they were at around 90.5K as of January 17th...yet somehow they only managed to rack up another 6,500 enrollees over the entire final month of Open Enrollment?? I was expecting upwards of 30K or so. This makes zero sense to me...am I missing something here?
In addition, there are a few states where their most recent official enrollment reports had some confusing data, which the ASPE report pretty much trumps regardless of anything else (at least, this is the official number which will be tossed around no matter what anyway):
Pennsylvania's newly elected Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf is working with the federal government to set up a state-based insurance exchange, but GOP-controlled state Legislature would need to approve any funding.
Gov. Rick Snyder said Monday he would ask the Republican-controlled Legislature to create a state-run health exchange if a key part of the Affordable Care Act does not survive a legal challenge.
2015 vs. 2014:
