I've had quite a few updates first announced via Twitter, but this is the first one I've received via Facebook: Kynect Kentucky just announced 275,000 total enrollments, an increase of 10,086 since 2/27. The announcement was apparently made on Thursday the 6th, so presumably they hit the 275K point by the end of the Wednesday the 5th. Assuming the same 20.4% QHP / 80.6% Medicaid ratio that they've had until now, that brings KY up to 56,000 Private QHPs and 219,000 new Medicaid enrollments.

kynect Enrollments Top 275,000!

Staff at the Kentucky Health Benefit Exchange paused on Thursday to celebrate this enrollment milestone, and prepared for a different kind of "March Madness," as Kentuckians rush to find affordable health care coverage through kynect before the March 31 deadline, when the 2014 open enrollment period comes to a close.

UPDATE: Hold the phone! Kynect just replied to me personally on Facebook, clarifying both the even more-recent total through yesterday as well as the exact QHP / Medicaid numbers!!

Several new numbers out of Arkansas. QHPs were at 21,763 at the beginning of February; I'll assume "late February" means around the 26th(?), so that's 4,237 in around 25 days.

On the Medicaid side, Arkansas' unusual "private option" system (in place of the standard Medicaid expansion) is a bit confusing as usual; technically the 94,000 people referred to are enrolled in "private" QHPs, but their bill is being footed 100% by Medicaid money, which is the more important factor here. The other 11,500 referenced were placed in "Medicare" although I'm pretty sure that's a typo and that it's supposed to read "Medicaid" (as in, "normal" Medicaid). It doesn't really matter, though; either way, both of these groups end up on the Medicaid side of the aisle, bringing Arkansas' total up from 79,000 to 105,500 new, ACA-enabled Medicaid recipients.

Already, as of late February, Wilson said 26,000 people had enrolled in the Health Insurance Marketplace and "had been transmitted to the (health) insurance carriers."

Connecticut's exchange PR person gave a new combined QHP/Medicaid tally of 141,233. The story was posted on the 7th but was actually updated on the 6th, so I'm assuming the number was as of the 5th. The previous number was around 58K Private QHPs and 82,100 Medicaid; using the same 41/59 ratio should bring these to 58,469 / 82,764.

Kathleen Tallarita, government and public affairs outreach manager for Access Health CT, said 141,233 residents statewide have signed up for health insurance through Access Health CT, created as the state's response to the federal Affordable Care Act. That surpasses the agency's goal of 100,000 new sign-ups in the first year.

In an article over at BloombergView, Megan McArdle (formerly of Newsweek/The Daily Beast, The Atlantic and The Economist) invoked my name regarding the recent "27% Previously Uninsured" McKinsey study.

Two reasons have been offered for why McKinsey might be wrong. For starters, Charles Gaba asks why, if McKinsey is correct, these numbers are so different from the numbers in New York, which collects data on prior insurance status and has found that a majority of purchasers are the previously uninsured.

I believe this is my first Missouri-specific QHP update: Their private enrollments went up from 54,147 as of February 1st to "about 68,000" by February 20, an increase of 13,853. Like the average of the other 17 states I have post-2/1 data for, Missouri's February enrollment rate appears to be very close to what it was in January, so I'm still confident of my appx. 902,000 February HHS report projection.

As of Feb. 20, about 68,000 Missouri residents had enrolled in private health plans through the online insurance marketplace, most of whom received federal subsidies to help offset the cost of premiums, said Ryan Barker, vice president for health policy at the Missouri Foundation for Health, a nonprofit group that's promoting the insurance marketplace.

Well, Oregon's website may still be a complete disaster, but their manual enrollment process seems to be chugging along fairly well. Private QHPs are up 3,500 from 38,806 a week earlier, while Medicaid enrollments are up another 7,100 from 84,991.

Note that they've finally stopped including the "Fast Track" Medicaid numbers, presumably because they've already enrolled everyone they could find via that route:

March 7, 2014
Update: Private coverage and Oregon Health Plan enrollment through Cover Oregon

Total: 134,412 
Private insurance: 42,325
Oregon Health Plan: 92,087

Update: Something else very interesting about Oregon's situation. Take a look at their QHP enrollment history:

  • 12/28: 18,337
  • 02/01: 33,808 (15,471 in 35 days, or 442 per day)
  • 02/28: 38,806 (4,998 in 27 days, or just 185 per day...a 58% drop per day, ouch!)

However, today they announced the number, as of (I presume) yesterday, the 6th, as:

Back in January, I found my first solid data on off-exchange enrollments via a Co-Op operating in Iowa and Nebraska called CoOportunity. They helpfully provided their data through January 24, which totalled 10,166 off-exchange enrollments in Iowa and antoher 17,779 in Nebraska.

Last week, they provided an update to these figures. When you add off-exchange individual/family policies to small & large group policies (which are "off-exchange" by definition, since the HC.gov SHOP system isn't operational yet...you get redirected to the individual companies/co-ops), Iowa is up to 12,293 and Nebraska is up to 19,959, as of February 24.

Last month there was news out of Massachusetts of some sort of extension being granted to "bring the state’s health care system in line" with ACA regulations. At the time I didn't pay much attention to it, thinking that it only related to administrative procedures or somesuch.

However, it turns out that there's actually 154,000 people who are currently enrolled in a sort of healthcare batter's box, being placed on hold until MA's screwed-up exchange is able to absorb them into the system via proper ACA-compliant QHPs (or Medicaid/CHIP...not sure about that yet):

Unable to immediately enroll applicants in new, private plans under the Affordable Care Act, state officials extended existing state coverage for about 124,000 individuals, and granted temporary state coverage to about 30,000 new applicants. Those individuals were supposed to move onto new plans by March. 31; the federal waiver gives officials another three months to do that.

So why am I bringing this up today, 3 weeks after that story broke? Because a contributor called my attention to this story out of Oregon:

Maryland's private QHPs went up 2,434 in the last week of February. More noteworthy, Maryland's exchange seems to be getting a lot of pressure to explain their "paid/unpaid" data; this is the most extensive explanation I've seen from any state about the subject (except for one Vermont report last month). They're up to 38,070 total, of which 20,439 are paid up.

Medicaid numbers are the same, since they're still through 2/25.

Through March 1, 38,070 Marylanders have chosen to enroll in private health plans through Maryland Health Connection.

On the one hand, it's nice to see Minnesota post 3 enrollment updates in a single week. On the other hand, for some reason they didn't include the exact number or the QHP/Medicaid breakdown this time. Not sure why...it's already known that their private QHPs have been making up around 30% of the total until now, and the exact tally through 3/1 will be out next week sometime anyway; no point in trying to mask low numbers. Strange.

Anyway, I'm still assuming a 30/70 split, which would be another 300 QHPs and 700 Medicaid/CHIP on the pile, for a total of 34,000 / 79,001.

ST. PAUL, Minn. —  Today, MNsure announced more than 113,000 Minnesotans have enrolled in comprehensive, affordable health insurance coverage through the state’s new health insurance marketplace.

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