While I was generally supportive of the idea overall, I also concluded that:
For me, however, ColoradoCare addresses many of the criticisms I've had of Bernie's plan. I'm not necessarily "endorsing" it (I still have a lot more to learn about the details and the criticisms before I can do so), but the bottom line is that it's more realistic and far better thought out than Bernie's national plan is. This is the best opportunity for achieving single payer that you're likely to see anytime soon.
Anyway, according to their latest report, when you add up the "effectuated enrollments WITH and WITHOUT APTC/CSR" (medical only), it totals 143,430 people as of June 9th, 2016...a slight drop from the 146,000 figure as of the end of April. As I noted last month, however:
In addition, Anthem has decided not to offer its PPO (Preferred Provider Organization) individual plans in 2017. In all, the Colorado Division of Insurance said Monday around 92,000 people with individual plans from Anthem, UnitedHealth, Humana, and Rocky Mountain Health Plans will have to find other coverage during open enrollment in the fall.
Many single payer advocates have been either confused or angry with me (to put it mildly) for not being a fan of Bernie Sanders's proposed national SP plan.
I've explained repeatedly that while I am a SP proponent, I just don't see it happening at the national level all at once. There are too many barricades and too many logistical, economic and political problems in doing so to make it remotely feasible to bring SP to the country in this fashion. In addition, I have major problems with the utter lack of detail in Bernie's plan.
HOWEVER, I've also repeatedly stated that I do strongly support getting the ball rolling at a smaller level first--either by partially expanding existing SP programs such as (Medicare, Medicaid, CHIP); consolidating existing private systems into larger risk pools (ie, merging the risk pools of the individual & small group markets, as a few states have done already); and/or by getting SP enacted at the state level, then using that as a model for other states and/or as a national model if it works out.
For 2017, UnitedHealthcare, along with most of its subsidiaries, is discontinuing its participation in the individual market in Colorado, both on and off the exchange. However, Golden Rule Insurance, a subsidiary of UnitedHealthcare, will continue to offer its individual plans in Colorado off of the exchange. UnitedHealthcare will also continue its small and large group business in the state.
Humana will continue in the small group market for 2017 off the exchange, while exiting the individual market for both Humana Health Plans and Humana Insurance Company.
A week or so ago, I reported that Connect for Health Colorado's monthly enrollment report contained some very confusing numbers:
Last month I noted that, assuming I was reading Connect for Health Colorado's monthly dashboard report correctly, they were down to 115,890 effectuated exchange enrollees as of 3/31/16, or a whopping 23.1% lower than the official APTC report tally of 150,769 QHP selections as of the end of Open Enrollment.
...The 121,962 number at the top seems to be the one I want...except that it also includes SHOP and standalone Dental enrollments (I think).
...OK, so 121,962 includes SHOP, which has a maximum tally of 2,897, which means that the effectuated number as of 4/30/16 could be as low as 119,065...except that "Individual" could also potentially include standalone dental plans, confusing the issue further. Even worse, it says that this "Includes those who effectuated in the current plan year and later terminated a policy".
I can't tell whether that means that those who terminated their policies have been subtracted from the total (accounted for) or if they're included in the total (cumulative).
Last month I noted that, assuming I was reading Connect for Health Colorado's monthly dashboard report correctly, they were down to 115,890 effectuated exchange enrollees as of 3/31/16, or a whopping 23.1% lower than the official APTC report tally of 150,769 QHP selections as of the end of Open Enrollment.
Over the weekend, they released their April dashboard report, and the numbers are actually up slightly...which means that while the net drop compared to the OE3 number is still steep, it's also spread out over a 3 month period instead of 2:
In a classic case of missing the forest for the trees, I posted two very wonky, detailed entries over the past couple of days about Minnesota and Connecticut's latest enrollment numbers...but completely missed one crucially important data point.
