California

Between the big December deadline (for January coverage) having passed and the holiday season, the actual OE4 enrollment data has been pretty sparse the past few weeks. A few minutes ago, however, Covered California broke the enrollment news drought (no pun intended) with a press release which, while not primarily focused on the actual enrollment data, nonetheless includes a solid update:

Covered California Brings Health Care Within Reach and Shows How Consumers Can Save by Shopping

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE  •  Dec. 16, 2016

Covered California Enrollment Continues to Surge for January Coverage

Deadline Extended to Dec. 19 to Align With Federal Marketplace

• Consumers now have through midnight on Monday, Dec. 19 to sign up and have their coverage begin starting Jan. 1.
• More than 67,000 new consumers selected a plan during the past four days.

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Covered California is extending a key enrollment deadline for coverage starting Jan. 1 in order to align with a new federal announcement made yesterday that extends the deadline for HealthCare.gov states. 

Consumers enrolling through Covered California will now have through Monday, Dec. 19 at midnight to sign up for health care coverage that will begin on Jan. 1. 

Covered California hopes that by aligning the deadline with HealthCare.gov it will reduce any confusion that consumers may experience after hearing yesterday’s federal announcement, and give consumers the time they need to sign up for coverage.

Just yesterday, Covered California reported 1.2 million renewals (including auto-renewals) of current ACA exchange enrollees, plus another 139,000 new QHP enrollments.

Today they've updated that to tack on another 14,000 new QHPs yesterday alone, bringing the grand total up to around 1,353,000 to date:

Covered California Extends Enrollment Deadline as Consumer Interest Continues to Grow

• Consumers now have until midnight on Dec. 17 to sign up for health care coverage that will begin on Jan. 1.

• More than 25,000 new consumers selected a plan during the past two days, which is more than enrolled at this time last year.

• Open-enrollment plan selections continue to surge ahead of last year’s pace.

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Thanks to a strong increase in demand, Covered California is giving consumers more time to sign up for health coverage that will start on Jan. 1.

Covered California, the largest state-based ACA exchange (making up over 12% of national exchange QHP enrollments) has only posted one enrollment report so far this period. At the time, they reported 308,000 QHP selections, of which 263,462 were active renewals by existing enrollees and 44,885 were new enrollees signing up. This was as of November 15th...15 days into the enrollment period.

On the one hand, only 14.5% of these are new, which is disturbingly low. On the other hand, part of the reason for this is because so many current enrollees actively renewed...helped, no doubt, by CoveredCA's new policy which allowed them to do so an entire month early (starting on October 1st).

Just moments ago, CoveredCA issued new enrollment data:

Covered California Enrollment Surging as Critical Deadline for Coverage Approaches

Covered California, the largest ACA exchange outside of HealthCare.Gov, just held their board meeting and released some key enrollment data for the first couple of weeks of the 2017 Open Enrollment Period:

EARLY PROGRESS FOR NEW SIGN UPS

44,885

Individuals have selected health care plans as of November 15, 2016. This enrollment reflects a period in which Covered California did not conduct media or enrollment promotion until after November 12th .

Compares to approximately 50,700 for same period 2015 (when Covered California had conducted extensive media and “bus tour” efforts to promote enrollment).

OK, so new enrollments are down about 11% from last year, but as they note, they deliberately held off on actively promoting/advertising until after the election this year.

In a pleasant surprise, 

Me, last Thursday:

There you have it: The states which are 100% on board with the ACA exchange provisions (running their own full state-based marketplace, expanding medicaid and sticking to the original cut-off date for "transitional" policies) average around 18%. If you remove Minnesota from the equation, it's just 15.2%.

Those which implemented only one or two of the above provisions come in at around 26%. In a possibly coincidental quirk, all five fo the "halfway" state exchange states (Hawaii, Oregon, Nevada, Kentucky and New Mexico) just happen to also fall into this category as well, which is completely appropriate.

Finally, states which are fighting the ACA kicking and screaming (no Medicaid expansion, no state exchange and allowing transitional plan extensions as long as possible) are averaging around 30%.

Make of that what you will.

Huh. OK, it looks like three of the ACA state-based exchanges have already launched their 2017 window shopping tools: Idaho, Maryland and California!

The other two announced that their 2017 offerings were open for business via press releases, but it looks like CoveredCA just quietly opened the doors without any fanfare. I stumbled across this by simply visiting the CoveredCA site and clicking the "Shop & Compare" link at the top, which now lists 2017 as the default Coverage Year (you can still choose 2016 if you need to enroll for the rest of this year via SEP). Plugging in some dummy info confirms that the plans are indeed set to start on 01/01/17.

I don't usually post a whole lot about the small group market (other than occasionally trying to track how many SHOP enrollees there are by state and nationally), but this seems like pretty good news given how chaotic the individual market continues to be...

Covered California for Small Business Announces Rate Change and Expanded Coverage Choices for 2017

• Statewide weighted average rate increase is less than 6 percent.
• Blue Shield of California expands to Full PPO network statewide.
• Kaiser Permanente moves into Santa Cruz County.

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Covered California announced today the rates and expansion plans for its small group health insurance exchange, Covered California for Small Business. The statewide weighted average rate increase is 5.9 percent, for employers and their employees beginning Jan. 1, 2017, which is down from the 7.2 percent increase in 2016.

Thanks again to commenter "M E" for finding this Business Insider article in which health insurance startup Oscar Insurance Co. has announced that they're pulling out of the ACA exchange completely in New Jersey, and out of the Dallas market specifically in Texas...while also expanding into San Francisco next year:

According to a release from the company on Tuesday, the firm will no longer offer individual market plans through the Affordable Care Act in Dallas, Texas, and New Jersey.

..."We hope to return to these markets as we carry on with our mission to change healthcare in the US."

The "we hope to return" part suggests that Oscar will continue to be available off the exchange in New Jersey, since completely pulling out of a state means a carrier has to wait at least 5 years before re-entering. So...there's that, anyway.

...Oscar currently covers 7,000 people in Dallas and 26,000 in New Jersey.

Back in early May, Covered California, the largest state-based ACA exchange in the country, issued their proposed 2016-2017 budget, which included this tidbit:

California’s health insurance exchange estimates that its Obamacare premiums may rise 8 percent on average next year, which would end two consecutive years of more modest 4 percent increases.

The projected rate increase in California, included in the exchange’s proposed annual budget, comes amid growing nationwide concern about insurers seeking double-digit premium hikes in the health law’s insurance marketplaces.

...Insurers in California have submitted initial rates for 2017, but the final figures won’t be known until July after state officials conduct private negotiations.