CEO Blog: Record Setting Day for Connect for Health Colorado®
We did it! We met the very important December 15 deadline with positive energy and in my opinion, we knocked it out of the park! We’ve seen some very impressive numbers with 10,000 plan selections on Wednesday. And on Thursday we processed more than 12,000 plan selections! Thank you for your tireless efforts supporting our customers.
With the volume that we are seeing, we want to reiterate that we are committed to assisting customers with January 1 coverage who began the process by midnight December 15. If customers are delayed, they should call our Customer Service Center for assistance before finalizing their enrollment. Our established process for requesting an alternative start date can be used to facilitate this.
Hmmm...the Colorado exchange hasn't issued an official enrollment update since the end of November, when it stood at 37,142 QHPs.
Today, in an article about the overall national numbers (mainly noting today's Week 5/6 Snapshot report), Kimberly Leonard of U.S. News & World Report cited a number I haven't seen elsewhere; I presume she simply called up the exchange directly. It seems about right to me:
Open enrollment began a week before Election Day, and several states reported that they didn't begin running ads until after that, saying they didn't want to compete with the attention the election was getting and noting that space sold during that time was particularly expensive.
That was the choice for Colorado, where enrollment is 16.3 percent higher than last year, totalling 50,207 people.
In addition, Leonard provides a couple of quick updates/corrections for some other states:
DENVER — More than 37,000 Coloradans selected healthcare coverage for 2017 through the state health insurance Marketplace in November, a rate 23 percent ahead of signups one year ago, according to new data released today by Connect for Health Colorado®.
“The pace of sign-ups during the first month of this Open Enrollment has been very heartening,” said Connect for Health Colorado CEO Kevin Patterson. “We know that there is a lot of discussion now about the future direction of healthcare, but what remains constant and true is the importance of protecting the health and financial future of all Coloradans. I encourage everyone who needs health insurance to check to see if they qualify for financial assistance, review the available plans, and complete an enrollment before the last-minute rush.”
In the first month of the annual Open Enrollment period, Coloradans selected 37,948 medical and dental insurance plans. That compares to 30,777 such plan selections in November 2015.
Today, the Connect for Health Colorado Finance & Operations Committee had a meeting with the following slideshow...showing that they're doing even better than that: 29,045 QHP selections in those same 22 days.
However, there's also another important tidbit here (last slide below): While the average unsubsidized premium rates for Colorado exchange enrollees officially went up 16.9%, the final premium cost to the enrollees is actually dropping by 1.9%(from $214/month to $210/month):
In Colorado, the typical consumer who has already used Affordable Care Act subsidies to buy exchange plan coverage for 2017 is on track to spend less on premiums next year.
When I last checked in on Colorado, they were reporting 2017 enrollments at a rate 30% faster than last year (16,305 in 13 days vs. 12,496 in the first 13 days last year).
Today they didn't issue an official update, but did give enough to piece together an estimate via an email to their enrollees:
Dear Connect for Health Colorado Stakeholders,
As we approach the Thanksgiving holiday, we’re busy as ever enrolling customers. In fact, enrollments are outpacing our numbers by more than 25 percent over this time last year, with our biggest day falling the day after the election. And, this is a trend we’re seeing nationally.
While the recent election has raised a lot of questions about the future of healthcare, what remains constant and true is the importance of protecting the health and financial future of our customers. Broken bones, disease and other chronic conditions aren’t political, but can happen at any time and in some cases, are preventable with access to care and health insurance. Our dedication to helping customers remains as strong as ever.
I noted last week that contrary to my concern that OE4 might get off to a slow start due to people holding off until after the election, the early enrollment numbers appear to be right on pace with my official projections after all. In fact, the single day's worth of data provided for HealthCare.Gov ("over 100,000"* enrollments on 11/09 specifically) is 17% higher than what I was expecting it to be, although obviously that could vary widely day to day. The numbers from Minnesota are also extremely impressive, running over 6x higher than the same period last year, that's mostly due to their unique enrollment cap situation, so that's not much of an indicator of any other state.
*(Update 11:55am: This Washington Post article gives HC.gov's 11/09 tally as 105K instead of simply "over 100K").
As I've been noting for a few months now, Connect for Health Colorado's monthly enrollment reports are chock full of data and confusing as hell at the same time.
As a result, I've started simply presenting them without much commentary. Here's the October report (remember, this is for currently enrolled 2016 policies, not 2017 Open Enrollment policies:
Well, today the Colorado Dept. of Insurance released their approved rate hikes for both the individual and small group markets. Unfortunately, I don't see an actual carrier-by-carrier breakout, but they do provide weighted averages by other criteria such as metal level, on exchange vs. off exchange and so on:
While it would be nice to have the averages weighted by carrier, the on/off breakout is kind of interesting because it also lets me know what the relative numbers are between the two. For the individual market, note that the on exchange weighted average is 20.9% vs. the off-exchange's 19.9%.
As I've been noting for a few months now, Connect for Health Colorado's monthly enrollment reports are chock full of data and confusing as hell at the same time.
As I've been noting for a few months now, Connect for Health Colorado's monthly enrollment reports are chock full of data and confusing as hell at the same time.
As a result, I've started simply presenting them without much commentary. Here's the July report:
