Since I started the ACA Signups project, I've generally restricted my posts to ACA enrollment-specific articles and data. After all, the subject of healthcare is so huge, and there's so many other far better sources for developments in the medical field, etc, that it seems best to stick to the subject at hand.
However, the anti-vaxxer movement, which started as the punchline to a bad joke named "Jenny McCarthy" has ceased to be amusing and has now become flat-out frightening.
From January 1 to June 10 this year, California already had 3,458 cases of whopping cough, which already exceeds the number of cases reported in 2013, and following a surge in the incidence of the disease in the past two weeks, health official found it necessary to declare an epidemic.
A trifecta of updates out of the LA Times today thanks to contributor Brian W; can you count how many GOP talking points take serious damage below:
New data show the number of students without health insurance on California State University campuses dropped by 60% after Obamacare enrollment, defying concerns that not enough young people would sign up for health insurance.
...During the open enrollment period that ended in April, some officials worried that if not enough young, healthy people signed up for coverage, insurance companies would be left with too many sick and expensive customers, which would eventually cause carriers to raise premiums.
According to a poll released Thursday, at the 15 largest CSU campuses, approximately 30% of students were uninsured before enrollment began, and 10% were uninsured after. The drop accounts for 60,000 students who became insured, and illustrates the late surge of young people who signed up for policies.
I spent a lot of time the past couple of days hammering on the HHS Dept. for announcing that they're discontinuing their official monthly enrollment reports. However, it also occurs to me that I haven't heard a peep out of most of the state-run exchanges in almost a month either:
First, apparently the ACA is such a "socialist, anti-capitalist" enemy of the free market that the private, for-profit insurance companies are just fleeing for the hills. Oh wait, actually...
Peter Lee, executive director of Covered California, said all 11 current health plans have indicated they plan to return next year. He also said three new plans have submitted letters of intent indicating they may compete on the exchange in 2015.
I was so caught up in the national tally implications, I forgot to actually devote a proper entry to California itself. There's some additional key numbers to look at here:
From April 1-15, 205,685 consumers – including a one-day record of more than 50,000 on the final day – completed their applications and selected health plans through the Covered California exchange, bringing the total to 1,395,929 at the end of the historic, first open enrollment period. The total exceeds the base projection for Covered California for the entire six-month enrollment period by more than 815,929.
As noted earlier, let's assume that "over 50,000" means, say, 50,100. To put this in context, they're saying there were (205,685 - 50,100) = 155,585 QHP enrollments in the first 14 days (about 11,100/day)...followed by 50,100 on the last day. That's 4.5x the rate it had been.
From April 1-15, 205,685 consumers – including a one-day record of more than 50,000 on the final day – completed their applications and selected health plans through the Covered California exchange, bringing the total to 1,395,929 at the end of the historic, first open enrollment period. The total exceeds the base projection for Covered California for the entire six-month enrollment period by more than 815,929.
Let's assume that "over 50,000" means, say, 50,100.
To put this in context, they're saying there were (205,685 - 50,100) = 155,585 QHP enrollments in the first 14 days (about 11,100/day)...followed by 50,100 on the last day. That's 4.5x the rate it had been.
Until this, I was estimating that the national 4/01 - 4/15 average would be around 45K - 55K/day nationally during the extension period, or around 675K - 825K total, for a grand total of around 7.77- 7.93 million exchange QHPs total. I settled on 7.78M as my "official" projection to be on the cautious side.
According to L.A. Times reporter Chad Terhune, CoveredCA has confirmed enrolling another 70,000 people in private QHPs in the first 9 days of the extension period. They had 1,221,727 as of 3/31, so that brings their total to 1.29 million as of last night:
#CoveredCA added 70,000 (on top of 1.2M) who picked a plan in the 9 days of the "grace period" since March 31 to April 15. @charles_gaba
OK, this is why CoveredCA was holding off on announcing their numbers: Peter Lee had to testify before Congress today anyway:
Enrollment in Covered California private health insurance plans hit 1,221,727 through March 31. In fact, March was the highest single month of enrollment, with more than 416,000 people signing up for a health insurance plan.
...Medi-Cal enrolled approximately 1.9 million people through the end of March, including 1.1 million through the Covered California portal and county offices, approximately 650,000 former Low Income Health Program (LIHP) members who were transitioned to Medi-Cal by the California Department of Health Care Services (DHCS) and 180,000 individuals who applied through the state’s Express Lane program.
OK, in addition to the appx. 7.041 million enrollments on the Federal exchange (HC.gov), I've brought CO, CT, DC, HI, KY, MD, MN, NY, RI and WA completely up to date, with all QHP data through midnight on 3/31 (some of the Medicaid/CHIP data is still missing, but that's a lesser concern at the moment).
However, I'm still missing the following exchange QHP data:
California: 22 hours (that's right...the current tally runs thru 2am on 3/31)
Massachusetts: 3 days (current is thru 3/28)
Nevada: 2 days (current is thru 3/29)
Oregon: 3 days (current is thru 3/28)
Vermont: 1 day (current is thru 3/30)
I can't tell you how frustrating it is to be this close to full data while still missing it.
So, how much is actually missing? Well, if these states were running at their prior average March daily rate, it would be
CA: 11,754
MA: 512 x 3 = 1,536
NV: 427 x 2 = 854
OR: 502 x 3 = 1,506
VT: 775
Total: 16,425
However, this obviously doesn't apply since the final weekend and especially yesterday were insane.
Without the final day's numbers, this update is both helpful and frustrating, because it's so close yet so far away. The QHP number is actually somewhat lower than I had thought a few days ago (not that I'm complaining; HC.gov more than took up the slack, and CA was going nuts on the final day anyway...which is why I'm so anxious to get the data from the 31st):
Consumer interest in Covered California has been strong, with 1,209,791 Californians signing up as of 2 a.m. March 31. From March 24 through 2 a.m. March 31, 155,988 individuals signed up for coverage. During the same week, 389,840 accounts were started — including 123,787 on Saturday and Sunday, as consumers hurried to meet the deadline.
“We’ve set records on accounts created five of the past six days,” Lee said.
