NOTE: This was originally posted over at Daily Kos. I've since ported it over here for archival purposes.
Boy did I speak too soon. Earlier today I posted a diary stating that new enrollment figures for ACASignups.net have been a bit on the scarce side this week.
Literally moments after I posted the diary, WHAMMO:
If November had an Obamacare surge, consider this the December deluge. California averaged 15,000 daily enrollments early last week, about double the sign-ups the state had in early December. New York is now seeing about 4,500 residents choosing plans each day and, in Connecticut, the number is hovering around 1,400.
NOTE: This was originally posted over at Daily Kos. I've since ported it over here for archival purposes.
UPDATE: Literally seconds after I posted this, some new numbers have come in from Kentucky and Connecticut that bump things up a bit more...
After a ton of new data last week, it seems that the state agencies have decided to put more focus on actually enrolling people and processing their forms than issuing their numbers. This is a polite way of saying that ACASignups.net is at a bit of a standstill at the moment, not because the enrollments aren't happening (if anything, they should be through the roof right now through next week), but because the numbers are just not being released as easily.
NOTE: This was originally posted over at Daily Kos. I've since ported it over here for archival purposes.
OK, I'm not sure how much this particular milestone should be crowed about considering that over 40% of the enrollment period has elapsed, but new actual numbers have been rather thin over the weekend, so I figured I'd call some attention to it.
Since the original CBO projection (remember, that was a projection, not an actual goal) through 3/31/14 was a tad over 7 million, that means that the exchanges have broken through the 10% mark. Yay team!
Some other cool numbers:
--Connecticut continues to kick major ass, having enrolled over 56% of their CBO projection. They could easily double or even potentially even triple the 33,000 figure that they were expected to achieve by the end of March.
I'm also extremely happy to report that thanks to California finally updating their official numbers (partly spoiled by yesterday's November HHS Report), the official ACASignups.nettally has shattered through the 600K mark, and now stands at:
Private Plan Enrollments: 679,743
Medicaid/SCHIP Expansion: 1,829,180
Total: 2,508,923
Meanwhile, check out the trend/projection line, which has jumped from around 3.7 million up to around 4.2 million by 3/31/14.
The article is a bit confusing, but it looks like 15,800 belong in the "Private Exchange" category with another 29,200 under the "Small Business (Direct)" category which doesn't even exist on the spreadsheet yet. I'll have to review this further to get a straight answer, but for now I'm entering both numbers under the "Private Exchange" heading.
The delayed deluge of applications — 5,000 were filled out in the past four days — brings the total number of Vermonters who should be settled with their coverage at the start of 2014 to 45,000, the administration says.
That’s roughly two-thirds of the 65,000 Vermonters whose insurance expires at the start of the year. Another 9,300 people have three months worth of breathing room — their plans have been extended through March 31, either because their employers chose that route or because the payment piece of the website isn’t working for them.
Of the 45,000 Vermonters who’ve signed up, 29,200 are people whose employers that decided to bypass the website and sign up directly with an insurance carrier. The remainder signed up either through the Vermont Health Connect portal or by filling out a paper application.
NOTE: This was originally posted over at Daily Kos. I've since ported it over here for archival purposes.
I have to admit, I wasn't expecting the official November HHS ACA enrollment report to be released until Friday (October's was released on 11/13), so I've spent the past few hours scrambling to update the ACASignups.net spreadsheet and graph. I'm happy to say that I've finished doing so.
I also have to admit to being slightly bothered by the failure to include so much as a footnote mention of ACASignups.net in this morning's front-page story about the HHS report, considering that this project is being run by more than a dozen dedicated dKos members, has a devoted following here and elsewhere, has been updated daily on a state-by-state basis, has been recognized by both Markos and Joan here at dKos, and even recently received some recognition by Sarah Kliff at WashPost's WonkBlog.
To date, 106,185 persons have enrolled and selected a Marketplace plan—this includes those who have paid a premium and those who have not yet paid a premium.
Based on available data, 846,184 completed applications were submitted to Marketplaces during the first month of the initial open enrollment period (10-1-13 to 11-2-13), including applications that were submitted to the SBMs and FFM. These completed applications correspond to a total of 1,509,883 million individuals (persons) who have applied for coverage through the Marketplaces during this time period. This represents 22 percent of the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimated 7 million Marketplace enrollment in 2014.2 (Please see Appendix A for corresponding tables containing state-level data, and see Appendix B for methodological information on how these numbers were derived).
NOTE: This was originally posted over at Daily Kos. I've since ported it over here for archival purposes.
After a TON of activity last week, the ACASignups.netspreadsheet was a bit quiet over the weekend. However, several new stats came out yesterday and today which have things moving again:
--The NY Times reports that 112,000 people enrolled in private plans--via Healthcare.gov--in the first week of December. Note that this doesn't include the other 14 state-run exchanges (plus DC). By comparison, only 27,000 enrolled in the Federal exchange throughout October, and 100,000 in November. So, that's a 4x increase the 2nd month followed by (so far) a 4x increase the third month.
NOTE: This was originally posted over at Daily Kos. I've since ported it over here for archival purposes.
Yup, that's right: After 9 weeks of charting, graphing and otherwise tallying everyone else enrolling in healthcare plans via the ACA exchanges, I'm happy and relieved to report that my wife and I finally went ahead and enrolled ourselves.
Living in Michigan, we had to use HealthCare.gov. I'm very happy to confirm that the reports from the HHS Dept. and other media sources are correct: It's working infinitely faster and more reliably than even a couple of weeks ago.
Since my wife is the principle name listed on our current plan, and since we're sticking with the same company anyway (just switching to one of the new ACA-compliant plans), she insisted on creating a brand-new user account under her name, figuring that there might be some confusion caused within the company system if the new plan was entered with my name as the principle one. I have no idea if this makes sense or not, but figured it wouldn't be a bad idea to start fresh with the most recent bugfixes in place.
Roughly 27,000 Americans signed up for insurance on the federal exchange on Tuesday, according to internal figures, bringing the site’s three-day enrollment total to 56,000. That figure is more than double the number who enrolled online in the entire month of October, which was almost 27,000.
Needless to say, I've been scrambling to bring the ACASignups.net spreadsheet up to speed this morning.
It seems that the "December Spike" or "Post-Thanksgiving Surge" or whatever you want to call it that Pres. Obama and the HHS Dept. were hoping for is happening, and in a big way. The announcement that the biggest hurdles in the ongoing Healthcare.Gov website debacle have been resolved is no doubt a major part of this dramatic turn of events.
In any event, I think I'll be hopping over the next few weeks.
