In all, 116,019 Connecticut residents signed up for private insurance through the state’s health insurance exchange, Access Health CT, during the open enrollment period that ended last week, officials said Monday.
That figure is slightly higher than the 110,095 who signed up during last year’s enrollment period and exchange officials’ goal for this year of signing up 105,000 to 115,000.
Connecticut only improved over last year by about 5.4%, but much of that is because, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation, CT only had around 62,000 uninsured people eligible for APTC assistance to begin with (they also have around 100K more uninsured who'd have to pay full price if they enrolled via the exchanges, but those people can get the same policies off-exchange anyway, and many very well might have done just that).
For the record, that also means 93,616 renewals from last year.
They also confirmed later that these numbers are as of 1/19, so that's an additional 4,467 in 14 days, or 319 per day on average.
They'll almost certainly reach their own target of 105K - 115K QHPs, but to achieve my target of 125K they'll have to ramp things up to over 1,300 per day for the remaining 12 days of open enrollment, which is probably pushing it (120K might be doable, however).
As of this week, Access Health CT announced it has more than 104,000 individuals enrolled in qualified health plans. That number could change during the final weeks of open enrollment and as existing customers renew coverage.
Lt. Gov. Nancy Wyman, who chairs the Access Health CT board, said the group is urging residents to check their healthcare coverage to make sure everything is correct for 2016. People without health insurance could face federal tax penalties.
...Access Health CT reported in late December over 34,000 new Connecticut customers had enrolled in health coverage since Nov. 1, on par with last year at this time. The new enrollment number represents 11,000 qualified health plan members and 23,000 Medicaid members.
Yesterday I noted that while Connecticut hasn't posted any enrollment updates since 11/17, a recent news article was very promising.
Today, Access Health CT did indeed post an official update, and while the numbers are quite good, they also have to be pulled apart a bit:
LT. GOV. WYMAN, ACCESS HEALTH CEO JIM WADLEIGH ANNOUNCE MIDENROLLMENT NUMBERS FOR AHCT
Over 34,000 New Customers Sign Up Through AHCT Hartford, Conn.
(December 22, 2015) – Lieutenant Governor Nancy Wyman, Chair of the Board of Access Health CT (AHCT) and Access Health CT CEO Jim Wadleigh today announced that over 34,000 new Connecticut customers have enrolled in quality, affordable coverage since November 1, 2015.
The Connecticut ACA exchange, AccessHealthCT, hasn't given out any official OE3 enrollment updates since November 17th. At the time, their official number appeared to be absurdly high because, like Rhode Island and Massachusetts, CT decided to "front-load" their auto-renewals up front. This is purely a record-keeping/reporting thing, because any of those who have been auto-renewed could still cancel their renewals at any time before January, so it doesn't really impact what the final number ends up being.
Anyway, as of 11/17, Connecticut's official tally was 93,657 current enrollees renewing (either actively or automatically), plus another 5,470 new additions, for a total of 99,127.
Of course, not only does this number not include a solid month's worth of data, the final week of that missing period was last week's mid-December deadline surge. Unlike HC.gov and several other states, CT did not extend their 12/15 deadline for January coverage, although of course residents still have until 1/15 to sign up for February coverage, and until 1/31 to get covered starting in March.
The monthly Access Health CT board meeting is taking place right now; they've posted a few key data tweets. I'll update if anything else relevant is tweeted out:
James Michel, Director of Operations, has shared that 13,300 new accounts have been created & 5,470 individuals have enrolled in QHP plans.
Rep. Rusche asked what our target enrollment is for this cycle and what barriers we see in making those targets. Mr. Kelly said the team is focused on the 80% goal of 92,000 as our enrollment target.Premium increases are a potential barrier. Net premium is a relatively small increase for most consumers, and each consumer will experience something different depending Page 5 of 14 on their plan, their location, their carrier, etc. We feel that while the premiums are increasing the relatively small net premium increase will mitigate this barrier to a large degree.
When I asked for clarification, they informed me that:
We currently have 86,659 effectuated enrollments with Your Health Idaho, as of September 15. The 92,000 would also refer to effectuated enrollments.
Connecticut has its lowest percentage of people without health care coverage ever, according to Lt. Gov. Nancy Wyman and Access Health CT.
Access Health, the state's Obamacare exchange, said 3.8 percent of Connecticut residents, or 137,000 people, are without any form of health insurance.
The U.S. Census reported in September that the number of uninsured Connecticut residents fell sharply in 2014, by 85,000 to 245,000, or 6.9 percent. That was down from 9.4 percent in 2013.
The Census number is the lowest figure it has reported in at least 20 years, and Access Health said its number — determined through an analysis of 2015 coverage by Acturus of Farmington — is an all-time low.
A quick update from Connecticut: Last month it looked like effectuated QHP enrollment at AccessHealthCT had increased a bit between June and September, from around 92.2K to 96.6K.
However, just moments ago at the AccessHealthCT board meeting, this graph was displayed, showing that effectuated enrollment has actually been dropping off gradually since March, which is actually exactly what you'd normally expect via normal attrition anyway.
In any event, according to this slide, CT currently has 95,601 effectuated QHP enrollees: 71,022 receiving tax credits (74%), 24,579 without (26%), which is down slightly from September. This is right in line with my (revised) national attrition estimates, which should taper off at around 9.7 million effectuated enrollees by the end of the year.
