Colorado

COLORADO: Exchange COO joins exodus, new system late

Colorado’s 2.0 “Kentucky-style” system that is supposed to simplify the way people get health insurance won’t be ready until days before the Nov. 15 open enrollment starts.

And as Colorado’s health exchange enters its busy season, a third “chief” has announced she’s leaving Connect for Health Colorado. Chief Executive Patty Fontneau departed in August. Chief Financial Officer Cammie Blais left two weeks ago. And Chief Operating Officer Lindy Hinman announced her resignation and plans to leave next month after open enrollment begins.

VIRGINIA: Funds to help Va. health care coverage signups

Virginia is getting $9.3 million in federal funding to help residents sign up for health insurance.

Gov. Terry McAuliffe said the money will help hire more than 100 people to help with enrollment that runs from Nov. 15 through Feb. 15.

Some fun with numbers.

As I predicted in early September, Part Two of the "OMG!! GAZILLIONS OF POLICIES CANCELLED!!" freakout has commenced with 3 weeks to go before the election. Case in point: Colorado, where the state Insurance Commissioner sent a letter to "state Senate Republicans" yesterday (I'm going to assume that this was in response to their request, as opposed to the Commissioner voluntarily choosing to only inform the Republicans specifically) stating that a total of 22,000 policies are scheduled for cancellation due to non-compliance with ACA provisions:

Over 22,000 Coloradoans have had their health insurance canceled by Obamacare in the past month — and 200,000 are slated to be shut down in 2015, the state insurance department announced Friday.

The Colorado Division of Insurance wrote to state Senate Republicans Friday, notifying them that five more insurance carriers have ended plans for 18,783 more Coloradoans in just the last month. By far, the most canceled plans will come from Humana Insurance Company and Humana Health Plan.

Colorado's official monthly metrics report is out, and shows that while off-season QHP additions have started to drop off as we approach the 2nd Open Enrollment period, they're still within my estimated range of 20-25% of the on-season rate.

Meanwhile, SHOP enrollments have inched above the 2,500 mark to sit at 2,517 covered lives as of the end of September.

OK, the number-crunching gets a little complicated here, and isn't helped by some sloppy wording on the part of the reporter (though it's a highly useful article overall).

First, let's start with the headline: "Thirty-percent attrition bites into exchange revenues"

Health exchange managers expect to lose about 30 percent of enrollees due to attrition by year’s end.

That means they’ll carry over about 114,000 existing customers as they head into the 2015 open enrollment season.

Connect for Health Colorado managers expect enrollments to slide back from a total of 146,000 so far.

...Of the 146,000 people who signed up by the end of August, exchange managers said 10 percent dropped out right away, never paying their first month’s premium. Then about 20 percent more leave in subsequent months.

At first glance, my headline above might seem to have a typo; according to the story itself, the actual increase is a whopping...1.18%, nearly a full percent higher! Busted, right?

Health insurance premiums next year will increase only about 1.18 percent on average statewide next year.

That’s according to the Colorado Division of Insurance after it reviewed and approved 1,072 health insurance plans from 20 carriers that will offer health coverage to consumers and small businesses next year.

However, when I read the actual report from the Colorado Insurance Division, it's even better than that:

Woo-Hoo! My son's fever finally broke, and my internet service is back on; things are looking up!

I can post a couple of updates now:

At the end of July, Connect for Health Colorado had enrolled just over 140K people in QHPs via the individual exchange, plus around 2,400 small business employees/dependents in SHOP plans.

As of the end of August, these numbers are up to 143,524 and 2,470 respectively.

 

OK, I'm feeling a bit foolish now. Earlier today I lamented the fact that the number of state exchanges issuing regular updates continues to dwindle. A few moments ago I realized that I hadn't checked in on Colorado in awhile, and sure enough, they've posted an update through the end of July.

No Medicaid numbers are included, but the exchange QHP tally has risen by another 3,750, to break the 140K milestone at 140,355.

The enrollment rate in CO has dropped a bit since earlier this summer, but they're still running pretty strong. With the new updates from CO and MN, my off-season enrollment projection has dropped a bit as well and now ranges between 8,100 - 10,900/day, still centered squarely on the 9,000/day mark.

SHOP enrollments, meanwhile, have gone up a whopping 19, to 2,392.

Yes, I'm quoted extensively in this CNBC piece by Dan Mangan, and yes, I rip on the HHS Dept. quite a bit in it (towards the end) for their continuing failure to issue monthly ACA enrollment reports during the off season. However, in terms of actual new enrollment data, there's a bit earlier in the story which caught my eye:

...at least 10 of those [state-run] exchanges have disclosed, at some point, how many people have paid their first month's premiums.

For example, a spokeswoman for Colorado's exchange, in a statement to CNBC, said: "As of June, we received data from the health insurance carriers that show 89.9 percent of Coloradans who purchased private health insurance through Connect for Health Colorado paid their first-month premium. There is some lag in data, so we anticipate that percentage may actually be higher ... we obtain this data from each of our 17 carriers and anticipate more complete information as we move forward."

I posted about Colorado's June enrollments a couple of weeks ago, but that was a rounded number and apparently was mixing in SHOP enrollees with QHPs. The official report has been released, and the numbers are a bit worse than I thought (though still impressive for off-season enrollment): 136,605 QHPs and 2,373 SHOP enrollments.

As of the previous update (5/31), Colorado was averaging around 177 QHP enrollees per day in the post-open enrollment period (7,413 / 42 days). With this latest update (dated June 24), they've actually increased this average slightly (4,185 / 23 = 182/day), for an overall off-season average of 178 per day:

The number of new enrollees in private health insurance through the state exchange, Connect for Health Colorado, continues to inch upward by about a couple hundred a day — and now stands at 137,000, officials said Tuesday.

Although open enrollment officially ended March 31 with 118,000 signups, it unofficially ended at 124,000 in mid-April as people who started before the deadline finally finished the process.

This stability makes me more confident of my 9K - 12K/day off-season estimate, since the late April/early May enrollments might otherwsie have just been chalked up to unprocessed leftovers from the enrollment extension period. However, the rate increasing (if only slightly) suggests that for Colorado, at least, the off-season rate seems to be pretty stable.

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