While their reports have always been comprehensive, they were also a bit confusing. Thankfully, starting with their June report, they've made the appropriate data points a bit more obvious. While the QHP selection total is still confusing, the effectuated number (which is really more relevant at this point is the combination of APTC/CSR + non-APTC/CSR enrollees, or 74,583 + 59,617 = 134,200 people as of the end of June.
Colorado is one of the few ACA exchanges issuing monthly reports during the off-season. Until now, these reports, while chock full of data, have made it rather confusing to separate out the key number which I'm looking for: The cumulative number of 2015 QHP selections and the currently effectuated QHPs, because of their tendency to mix SHOP and Dental policies into the mix.
For 2015, Colorado HealthOP cut premiums aggressively, and ended up with the lowest-cost plans in eight of the state’s nine rating areas. Unsurprisingly, that resulted in the CO-OP garnering the highest market share in the exchange during the 2015 open enrollment period, with nearly 40% of exchange enrollees selecting Colorado HealthOP coverage (among our own clients, Colorado HealthOP was even more popular, including among those who selected off-exchange coverage).
...In 2015, Colorado HealthOP got almost 40% of the exchange’s market share, and Kaiser was a close second with 35%; the two non-profits accounted for three-quarters of all the private plan enrollees in Connect for Health Colorado this year.
Colorado just released an updated enrollment report bringing things all the way up through April 30th...and as always, CO's report is both extremely comprehensive and extremely confusing at the same time.
Historically, Medicaid (and to a lesser extent, the CHIP program for children) has carried a certain stigma, since it's traditionally been reserved for the very poor. Many people enrolled the program have been embarrassed/ashamed to admit that they needed the assistance, and many who qualified for the program even under the pre-ACA rules never actually signed up based on the "shame" factor (still others didn't enroll because they simply didn't know that they qualified or didn't understand the procedure/paperwork for doing so).
With that Affordable Care Act, that all changed (well, in the states which expanded Medicaid, anyway). Yes, it's still limited to the poor, but there's a difference between being "dirt poor" and "working poor" (and yes, I understand that many "dirt poor" people work their butts off...I'm talking about general societal perception here). Suddenly, millions of people who considered themselves "lower middle class" (or otherwise "not poor", anyway) found themselves being able to enroll in Medicaid alongside the "dirt poor".
HAWAII: I was assured 8 ways from Sunday that Hawaii's23,000 enrollee figure was specifically for 2015 enrollment. This made no sense to me given their tiny enrollment last year, but I was assured of it. Well, apparently my original instincts were correct, because they're showing up with only 12,625 in the end.
IDAHO: This is the only state which hasn't given their own enrollment update in forever. According to the prior ASPE report, they were at around 90.5K as of January 17th...yet somehow they only managed to rack up another 6,500 enrollees over the entire final month of Open Enrollment?? I was expecting upwards of 30K or so. This makes zero sense to me...am I missing something here?
In addition, there are a few states where their most recent official enrollment reports had some confusing data, which the ASPE report pretty much trumps regardless of anything else (at least, this is the official number which will be tossed around no matter what anyway):
The Colorado ACA exchange has just released their latest official enrollment report, and while it's chock full of useful data, it's also bit hard to read (physically...it's a low-res version, will swap it out with a higher-res PDF once they post it), and the numbers also require a bit of parsing...and are a bit confusing.
UPDATE: OK, I've found the actual high-res Dashboard report and have swapped out the low-res one below.
the grand total of "submitted enrollments" is just shy of 154,000. However, that appears to include 3,716 SHOP enrollees (the precise SHOP number is a bit fuzzy due to the footnote regarding this being "currently covered lives, regardless of date of enrollment").
So, separate SHOP out and you have 150,229 QHP selections.
OK, strike that...Colorado has released their newest data as well as DC and Vermont, leaving just 3 states to go (Connecticut (data since 2/13), Kentucky (data since 2/12) and Idaho, which hasn't posted any updates since way back on January 17th...over a month ago.
DENVER, CO – Between Nov. 15 and Feb. 15, nearly 220,000 Coloradans enrolled in healthcare coverage for 2015, either in private plans purchased through the health insurance Marketplace, or with Medicaid or Child Health Plan Plus (CHP+), according to new data released today by Connect for Health Colorado® and the Colorado Department of Health Care Policy and Financing.
During the three-month open enrollment period, 139,652 people enrolled in private coverage through Connect for Health Colorado; another 76,194 in Medicaid and 3,720 in CHP+. Connect for Health Colorado also enrolled 24,884 individuals in dental plans.
I've confirmed that Rhode Island's weather-induced enrollment extension is indeed state-wide and is of the "full" variety (ie, people can start the application process, not just finish it), through February 23rd. This is exactly the same policy that the Massachusetts exchange announced the other day.
As of last Monday, Colorado reported 128,000 enrollments in 2015. About three-fourths of those are returning customers , with about a fourth being new customers.
OK, so that's an increase of around 2,622. However, the "...as of last Monday" bit is confusing. To me, saying "last Monday" on a Friday refers to the prior Monday (ie, 2/02 in this case). However, that would suggest that CO enrolled over 1,300 per day for 2 days in a row. The state was only averaging 233/day over the prior couple of weeks, which means they'd have to have ramped up over 5.5x, which is possible (a few other states have pulled this off).
