So far, I've entered the final 3/31 Exchange QHP data for Colorado, the District of Columbia, Minnesota and Rhode Island. I also have inexact final numbers for Kentucky.
I still need to update the final numbers for California, Connecticut, Hawaii, Maryland, Massachusetts, Nevada, New York, Oregon, Vermont and Washington State.
I'm sure all of these will come in later today or so. In the meantime, I'm taking a few minutes to actually breathe :)
Wow, a personal response from the KynectKY Facebook Page:
Kynectky Charles Gaba Total QHP Enrollments = 73,080; Total MCO Enrollments = 286,222.
I don't think this is the final 3/31 total, however, since this adds up to 359,302, which was posted as of around 4pm yesterday.
However, they've also just announced another 12K "processed through 8:30am today", so I'm not sure whether those are counted as part of the 3/31 total or not. I'm going to assume that they were entered last night and just took a few hours to actually process fully...therefore they count towards the 3/31 tally (unless they clarify otherwise), using a 20/80 ratio of 2,400 QHPs to 9,600 Medicaid:
No final numbers or Medicaid, but it's something for the moment:
According to preliminary numbers, approximately 140,000 people had purchased insurance plans through the state by the end of the weekend, said Michael Marchand spokesman for the Washington Healthplanfinder exchange. That’s a bump of about 9,000 people over four days.
The third state-based exchange (well...technically not a state) to release their 3/31 total is the District of Columbia. Fortunately, they specifically separate out the SHOP numbers:
The DC Health Benefit Exchange Authority today released new data showing strong enrollment activity through DCHealthLink.com as of March 31st. Since the marketplace opened for business on October 1, DC Health Link has enrolled 40,234 people. This includes District residents who enrolled in private health plans and in Medicaid, as well as people with coverage through their employers. In the final week alone, more than 2,000 people enrolled through the individual and family marketplace -- accounting for over 21% of all individual enrollments in private coverage.
Enrollment
As of March 31, 2014, 40,234 people have enrolled through DC Health Link in private health plans or Medicaid:
9,838 people enrolled in private health plans through the DC Health Link individual and family marketplace;
17,489 people were determined eligible for Medicaid coverage through DC Health Link; and
12,907 people enrolled through the DC Health Link small business marketplace.
The headlines are all buzzing with the announcement of the official grand total of exchange-based QHPs as of midnight yesterday: 7,041,000:
How many people have signed up for private coverage under Obamacare? 7,041,000, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney announced Tuesday afternoon.
But wait, what's this?
That number is likely to rise: It does not include the Monday sign-ups in the 14 states operating their own marketplaces. In addition, the enrollment deadline was relaxed for people having trouble completing the process, so some people could still sign up in the next two weeks.
IF I'm interpreting Mr. Park's words correctly, he's saying that the grand total of exchange QHPs was brought over the 7 million mark even without including the state exchange enrollments for the day.
So, how many more did the 15 state exchanges (well, 14 + DC) bring in?
ST. PAUL, Minn.—MNsure successfully enrolled 169,251 Minnesotans into comprehensive, affordable health insurance plans as of midnight on March 31, bringing the 2014 open enrollment period to a close, MNsure announced today.
“More than 169,000 Minnesotans have enrolled for health coverage through MNsure, blowing past our projection of 135,000 in October,” said MNsure’s interim CEO, Scott Leitz. “I am extremely proud of the MNsure staff who worked tirelessly, often sacrificing time with family over the last year to get Minnesotans enrolled in coverage. Our mission every day has been to make health insurance coverage possible for those Minnesotans who are uninsured and underinsured, including those who have been denied coverage up to now due to pre-existing conditions. Though the rollout of MNsure has not been perfect, we have worked hard to make critical improvements—which we will continue to do through the spring and summer, leading up to our next open enrollment period in November.”
To date, MNsure has enrolled 47,046 Minnesotans in a Qualified Health Plan, 34,219 in MinnesotaCare and 87,986 in Medical Assistance.
Here we go...Rhode Island is the first state-based exchange out of the gate with an (unofficial, but specific) final tally of 3/31 QHP enrollments: Nearly 28,000 by midnight yesterday.
HealthSource RI spokeswoman Dara Chadwick said 27,968 individuals signed up for private plans through the new marketplace between Oct. 1 and the 11:59 p.m. deadline for 2014 enrollment, 1,840 of whom signed up Monday. The number is expected to rise as those who encountered technical difficulties or weren’t able to speak to a representative on Monday finish getting processed.
There's no update on the Medicaid number since March 8th, unfortunately, but this still locks down at least one key number. More to come, no doubt...
From April Ryan, whose "HHS major scoop" batting average is now two out of three (at least since I started following her, anyway):
At 12:01 AM, White House Chief Technology Officer Todd Park acknowledged to QSSI, the Columbia, Maryland firm tasked with fixing Healthcare.gov that the ACA enrollments have surpassed the 7 million mark.
OK, that's pretty cool, but what's with the "holy smokes"? Well, when you listen to the audio clip of the countdown/7M announcement (and do so at the link...it's pretty cool), Todd Park states the following (emphasis mine):
"Outstanding Numbers" has two meanings: The first, of course, is that in spite of everything--the terrible website launch of HC.gov and some of the state sites; the still-terrible status of some of the state sites even now; the actively-hostile opposition and obstructive actions in certain states, the negative spin on every development by some in the news media--in spite of all of this, over 7 million people nationwide enrolled in private, ACA-compliant healthcare plans between 12:01am on 10/1/13 and 11:59pm on 3/31/14...slightly surpassing the original CBO projection for that period.
There's the usual discussions about "But how many have PAID???", "But how many were ALREADY INSURED???", "How many were YOUNG???" and "What METAL LEVEL did they get???" etc etc etc. All of these are reasonable questions for actuaries, accountants and so forth to ask, and the answers will indeed help shape our understanding of what the overall economic and health impact of the law will be.
For the moment, however, none of that matters. This is an outstanding number any way you slice it.
