CMS

NOTE: My broadband connection has been experiencing a lot of problems lately; I have a service guy on his way out today for the fourth time in the past two weeks, but this means I'll likely be offline for a few hours, so this post will be incomplete for awhile.

Yesterday, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid released three important new reports. I did an initial write-up about their overall findings yesterday; today I'm taking a deeper look at the actual reports themselves.

First up, the February 2018 Effectuation snapshot report:

Over the past few weeks,I've posted partial 2018 Open Enrollment Period demographic data from Connecticut, Idaho, Maryland, New York and Washington State. Still missing are final wrap-up reports from the other 7 state-based exchanges...as well as The Big One: The official report from the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation (ASPE).

The 2014 ASPE report was released on May 1st, 2014...just 17 days after the first, tumultuous 2014 Open Enrollment Period ended (only 12 days, really, since the report actually ran through April 19th, 2014 even though the "overtime" period technically ended on April 15th).

This just in...I used to track the monthly Medicaid/CHIP reports pretty religiously, but the total numbers have actually stayed fairly stable month to month for the past year or so (mainly because the states which expanded Medicaid under the ACA have mostly "maxed out" by now). This should start changing in Maine later this year as they voted to expand the program via ballot initiative last November, and Virginia may end up expanding Medicaid to up to 400,000 people there as well later this year.

In the meantime, here's where things stood as of the end of 2017, according to CMS:

Highlights from the December 2017 Report

Medicaid and CHIP Total Enrollment

Note: Ironically, I had to make a slight correction myself below--for some reason I originally had "Alleigh" down as "Allison".

Flashback to May 24, 2017:

From Alleigh Marre, HHS Dept. National Spokesperson, less than an hour ago (h/t Kimberly Leonard for the heads up):

"Even Charles Gaba, the author of ACAsignups.net admits in his analysis, “The simple truth is: Yes, full-price, unsubsidized premiums for individual market healthcare policies probably have doubled since 2013…” His analysis of the report drives home that Obamacare’s one-size-fits all mandates and regulations have driven up prices for all."

Here's the actual quote she's referring to:

OK, first of all, here's the actual press release from CMS about it:

CMS announces new policy guidance for states to test community engagement for able-bodied adults
Will support states helping Medicaid beneficiaries improve well-being and achieve self-sufficiency

CMS today announced new guidance that will support state efforts to improve Medicaid enrollee health outcomes by incentivizing community engagement among able-bodied, working-age Medicaid beneficiaries. The policy responds to numerous state requests to test programs through Medicaid demonstration projects under which work or participation in other community engagement activities – including skills training, education, job search, volunteering or caregiving – would be a condition for Medicaid eligibility for able-bodied, working-age adults. This would exclude individuals eligible for Medicaid due to a disability, elderly beneficiaries, children, and pregnant women.

In other words, work requirements for Medicaid expansion enrollees are now officially on the table.

Every month I post an entry about the official CMS Medicaid enrollment report, documenting the increase in Medicaid enrollment since ACA expansion went into effect. The numbers were increasing dramatically every month for nearly two years, but started slowing down last fall as most of the expansion states started maxing out on their eligible enrollees.

As of August 2016, total Medicaid enrollment continued to quietly increase for a total of 73.1 million people, with 15.7 million of that being mainly due to the ACA (~11 million via official expansion, ~1 million early additions/transfers and ~4 million "woodworkers").

Every month I post an entry about the official CMS Medicaid enrollment report, documenting the increase in Medicaid enrollment since ACA expansion went into effect. The numbers were increasing dramatically every month for nearly two years, but started slowing down last fall as most of the expansion states started maxing out on their eligible enrollees.

As of July 2016, total Medicaid enrollment continued to quietly increase for a total of 72.8 million people, with 15.4 million of that being mainly due to the ACA (~10 million via official expansion, ~1 million early additions/transfers and ~4 million "woodworkers").

Regular readers know that I used to regularly post an entry about the official CMS Medicaid enrollment reports every month, documenting the increase in Medicaid enrollment since ACA expansion went into effect. The numbers were increasing dramatically every month for nearly two years, but started slowing down last fall as most of the expansion states started maxing out on their eligible enrollees.

As of November 2015, there had been a net increase of 14.1 million people added to the Medicaid rolls since October 2013 (the month when ACA expansion enrollment began), plus another 950,000 people who had already been quietly transferred over to Medicaid from existing, state-funded programs prior to 2013 via other ACA provisions. I sort of forgot to post about the reports for awhile, but checked back in again for the May report, released back in July.

Last November, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid (CMS) posted a whole mess of proposed ACA policy improvements for the 2017 Open Enrollment Period. They included a Public Comment period, then spent awhile reviewing all of the suggestions and making tweaks/changes to the proposals accordingly.

Just moments ago, they released the final parameters/rules for 2017...all 540 pages of it. Good grief.

Anyway, while there's a mountain of legalese to wade through here, the first one which leaps out at me is the one relating to the public Rate Review policy.

(note: I'm live updating as I type this stuff, so keep checking back, I'll be adding more updates/analysis over the next hour)

Wow! OK, I'm back from my kid's field trip (nature center; they learned about how animals handle the winter via hibernation, migration & adaptation...learned about fossils...went on the nature trail to look for animal tracks...and even dissected owl pellets, hooray!!). Of all the days to miss a major HHS/CMS conference call, this was a big one. I'm furiously poring over the HHS Dept's ASPE January Enrollment Report  which, as I expected this morning, was just released less than two hours ago.