Hmmm...this is different; I'm pretty sure this is the first time that I've been quoted in a formal enrollment data press release...
MARYLAND HEALTH BENEFIT EXCHANGE BOARD CELEBRATES PROGRESS OF OPEN ENROLLMENT
Exchange enrolls more than 100,000 at one month mark
BALTIMORE (Dec. 16, 2014) — The Board of Directors of the Maryland Health Benefit Exchange (MHBE) today celebrated the progress of the Maryland Health Connection one month into its open enrollment. More than 100,000 Marylanders have signed up for 2015 health coverage.
Maryland Health Connection has enrolled 105,902 people — including 61,031 in Qualified Health Plans (QHPs) and 41,871 in Medicaid. By comparison, during the first open enrollment a year ago, 1,278 Marylanders enrolled in private QHPs through the marketplace during its first 30 days.
A rebuilt website that enables consumers to “browse” plans without needing to create personal accounts, a much larger schedule of enrollment fairs across the state than a year ago and additional “storefront” spaces where Marylanders can get assistance enrolling in person have helped propel the improved results. The changes have been noted in the media, including:
Beneficiaries with Healthy Michigan Plan Coverage: 487,190
(Includes beneficiaries enrolled in health plans and beneficiaries not required to enroll in a health plan.)
*Statistics as of December 15, 2014
*Updated every Monday at 3 p.m.
In all seriousness, obviously that 477K eligibility figure could be off; I've heard other estimates as high as 500,000, for instance.
The point is that the Medicaid expansion well in Michigan, along with many other states, is already running dry less than a year into the program (and in Michigan's case, less than 9 months into the program).
As you can see on The Graph, I'm also assuming roughly an 88% payment rate (ie, how many of those 12.5M I expect to pay for their first month's premium), which should be roughly 11.0 million even.
However, there's one number missing, which I left off in the interest of avoiding confusion: How many I expect to still be enrolled by the end of 2015. This is pretty simple, though: Around 10.5 million. How do I arrive at that number? Well, this year the net attrition rate resulted in around 6.7 million people still being enrolled nationally as of mid-October. That's around 84% of the 8.0 million "total" enrollment figure as of last April. In other words, out of 8 million people, about 12% never paid and another 4% gradually dropped off the exchanges by October.
Assuming a similar pattern next year, 84% of 12.5 million is 10.5 million who should still be enrolled via ACA exchanges as of next October.
I've received some interesting information regarding just how CMS/HHS plans on handling autorenewals (aka "passive re-enrollments") for those people who are currently enrolled in ACA exchange QHPs, but who took no action whatsoever as of midnight last night. It's important to note that this information only relates to those enrolled in 35 of the states run through HC.gov (that is, this doesn't relateto any of the state-run exchanges, and it doesn't even include Oregon or Nevada, since everyone currently enrolled in those states has to manually re-enroll).
So, we're talking about a maximum number of perhaps 5 million people here...and even then, a good half of them have likely manually re-enrolled, leaving perhaps another 2.5 million.
Having said all that, here's the info: In most cases, anyone who neither manually re-enrolled nor manually cancelled their policy should be automatically re-enrolled in their current policy (albeit possibly at a higher--or, in a few cases, lower--premium cost).
As you can see from the graphic I posted yesterday (and had to revise several times throughout the day), the official enrollment deadline for private policies starting on January 1st, 2015 has now passed for all 37 states operating via HealthCare.Gov, as well as residents of DC, Hawaii and Kentucky. It's certainly possible that any or all of these will announce some sort of "special circumstances" allowance for those who didn't make the midnight cut-off (10pm in Alaska), but I'm assuming those would be done strictly on a case-by-case basis.
OK, so what about the remaining 11 states?
Well, 4 of them (MD, MA, RI & WA) had later deadlines for January coverage all along: Maryland on 12/18 (Thursday) and the other 3 on 12/23 (next Tuesday).
New York and Idaho bumped their deadlines out from yesterday until 12/20 (Saturday), although Idaho had previously claimed that their deadline was 12/23, but are now claiming that it was originally 12/15. I still don't understand what happened there, but so be it: 12/20 it is for ID.
It's been a crazy day, and there have been some major developments: California, Connecticut, Minnesota and Vermont all announced last-minute deadline extensions of various types for January 1st coverage. In addition, I received an unexpected bounty of enrollment data drops (either partial or complete) from California, Connecticut, DC, Hawaii and Massachusetts. On top of all that, there was big Medicaid news out of Pennsylvania and Tennessee.
So, after this massive information overload, have I changed my projections at all? Well, I may still adjust my calls for future milestones, but I'm sticking to my guns for Week 4 (December 12th) and Deadline Day (December 15th):
I'm actually a bit curious about the "new" specification here. Last week the head of the HI exchange gave an interview in which he gave the number as being 12,000, but it turned out that was a cumulative number which included all of the enrollments from last year (whether they had renewed yet or not) as well as the new additions. I thumbnailed it as being around 1,200 enrollments for 2015.
Therefore, I'm not sure how to take "nearly 1,500 new residents" in this case; that may mean "new for 2015 including renewals" or it may mean "new for 2015 not including renewals". Either way, the number isn't large enough to impact my spreadsheet/projections, but it's still a bit irritating:
Hawaii: Hawaii Health Connector has enrolled nearly 1,500 new residents as of Dec. 5. Last year glitches to the website caused enrollment to be delayed by two weeks. According to HealthInsurance.org, the state’s uninsured population has gone down from 8 percent of the population to 6 percent of the population since Obamacare went into effect..
District of Columbia: DC Health Link has enrolled 1,413 people, both new and renewed applications, according to data collected by last week Kaiser Health News.
Grammar aside, I'll assume "last week" means "through Friday the 12th".
I wasn't really expecting any data drops today, but I've already received surprise updates from California and Massachusetts, and now I can add Connecticut, DC and Hawaii all in one shot (via separate entries):
Connecticut: Last year the state's uninsured rate dropped by about half – from nearly 8 percent to 4 percent. Likely for this reason Kevin Counihan, the CEO of Access Health CT, was scooped up by the federal government to help fix Healthcare.gov. Latest figures for this year come from Dec. 12, which showed 39,000 new Medicaid enrollees and 13,000 new private health plans, according to an email from a state official. Late Monday, Access Health CT announced that it was allowing a grace period until Dec. 19 for enrollment that would begin January 2015. Consumers who had started an application before Monday could have four additional days to fill out their information.
That's 13K new enrollees only; again, it's safe to assume at least a 1:1 ratio between new & renewed enrollees, so I'm calling it at least 26K total for CT so far.
California’s health insurance exchange extended its deadline for consumers wanting Obamacare coverage in effect by Jan. 1.
Peter Lee, executive director of Covered California, said people who start the application process or make some “good faith effort” by Monday will have until Dec. 21 to finish signing up. Monday at midnight had previously been the hard deadline.
“We are providing this window to get people across the finish line,” Lee said at an exchange board meeting Monday. “We know many of the people applying have never had insurance before, and these are individuals who need to sit down and talk with someone.”
Lee said many insurance agents and enrollment counselors were already fully booked with applicants Monday. He said the deadline extension will allow people to make appointments through Dec. 21.
