Connecticut continues to Do It Right®. Not only have they broken their own combined goal by 60%, they're also now 37% past their fair share of the CBO's original 7 million QHP figure. The exchange's CEO is quoted in the article as saying that CT doesn't expect to see much of a "March surge", but that isn't too concerning to me--they're already doing fantastic, so any enrollment rate increase wouldn't be as dramatic by comparison anyway.
Oh, yeah--and 92% of all of their enrollees to date are paid up, even more impressive considering that this should include people whose policies don't even start until April.
In Connecticut, 160,580 people have enrolled in coverage through Access Health CT, surpassing the exchange's self-imposed goal of 100,000 people. Counihan said roughly 62,000 of those who enrolled signed up for one of three private health plans represented on the exchange. Most of the remainder signed up for some form of Medicaid.
UPDATE: On the down side, I was off by 4% this time around.
On the up side, I UNDERESTIMATED:
Actual Feb. enrollments: 942,833, for a total of 4,242,325 thru 3/01/14.
Sarah Kliff at Vox just announced that the February HHS report is expected to be released today at around 4:00pm. A few items in anticipation of that:
As I've noted several times, I'm projecting the report to total around 902,000 exchange-based private QHP enrollments for the month of February (technically 2/02 - 3/01)
If accurate, this would bring the cumulative total of exchange-based private QHP enrollments to 4.202 million (from 10/1/13 - 3/01/14)
From the data I have, the average daily enrollment rate in February was almost identical to that of January, which had about 1.146 million QHP enrollments. HOWEVER, the January report included five weeks of data (12/28 - 2/01), while the February report will only include four weeks (2/02 - 3/01). Therefore, even at the same daily average, it'll be about 20% lower no matter what.
Don't be surprised if Peter Lee of CoveredCA decides to steal some thunder by announcing that California has enrolled 1,000,000 QHPs all by itself either today or tomorrow. However, that would include the past 10 days, while the HHS number will only run thru 3/01.
If you want to get REALLY specific, call it 902,800 and 4,202,292.
I've been dead-on target 6 times in a row without hyping up my projections beforehand. This time I am hyping myself up beforehand, so I'll probably be way off...but as long as I've UNDERestimated the tally, I'll be perfectly fine with that...
The report will be released in about 5 minutes, but my kid gets home from school in about 10, so it'll be a good 20 minutes before I can really post anything. Feel free to follow Sarah Kliff of Vox in the meantime!
For the most part this is just a standard update for Connecticut, which continues to be one of the most successful ACA exchanges with little drama; private QHPs are up another 2,065 from 58,469 on March 5th to 60,534 as of yesterday, while new Medicaid enrollments have gone up from 82,764 to 92,027, an increase of 9,263. Connecticut recently gave a "Paid QHP" percentage as 91%; assuming this still holds, I have them at 55K paid / 5,534 unpaid.
However, in a nice surprise, the latest update also separates the Medicaid numbers out into "strict expansion" (69,692) and "woodworkers" (22,335). This makes CT among only a handful of states to pinpoint the Medicaid enrollees in this way; hopefully the other expansion states will follow.
According to Access Health CT, 60,534 people have signed up for plans with Anthem, Healthy CT, and ConnectiCare. The rest, or 92,027 individuals, have signed up for Medicaid plans that are funded by the federal government.
Connecticut's exchange PR person gave a new combined QHP/Medicaid tally of 141,233. The story was posted on the 7th but was actually updated on the 6th, so I'm assuming the number was as of the 5th. The previous number was around 58K Private QHPs and 82,100 Medicaid; using the same 41/59 ratio should bring these to 58,469 / 82,764.
Kathleen Tallarita, government and public affairs outreach manager for Access Health CT, said 141,233 residents statewide have signed up for health insurance through Access Health CT, created as the state's response to the federal Affordable Care Act. That surpasses the agency's goal of 100,000 new sign-ups in the first year.
Two nice finds about Connecticut from contributor deaconblues today. The first article (about CT shopping their successful exchange website package around to other states) gives the QHP enrollment through 3/01 as roughly 58,000; this is up from 53,673 eleven days earlier, an increase of 4,327.
The second article gives the total enrollments as of 2/24 as around 128,000, which suggests around 80,000 Medicaid enrollments, but a little simple math to account for the 5-day difference in the two figures gives the actual Medicaid portion of that as being around 2,100 higher, or 82,100 total. This is an increase of 9,120 people in 6 days.
As of March 1, some 58,000 state residents had signed up for private health insurance through Access Health CT, nearly twice the goal of 33,000 established by federal officials for the entire open enrollment period, which runs through the end of the month, according to Kevin J. Counihan, chief executive of the Connecticut exchange.
Hot off the presses (well...ok, hot off a CT Mirror reporter's Twitter feed, anyway): Connecticut is reporting an additional 3,000 private QHP enrollees over the past week (up to 53,673 on 2/18 from 50,665 as of 2/10), and an increase in Medicaid enrollment of around 1,600 people. They also apparently have a "paid" rate of at least 91% ("low 90%"):
As of midnight Tuesday, Access Health CT had 126,653 enrollees, including 53,673 signed up for private insurance.
So, how does this impact the "February Drop-off" factor? Well, previously CT's February enrollment was running about 39% below January; this has improved to only 19% lower per day, which has the effect of increasing the overall daily average a bit, even after adjusting to only include the 91% paid enrollments:
Wow, talk about a last-minute update: Just received a tip about Connecticut announcing that they've broken through 120K in either Private QHPs or Medicaid/CHIP today:
(HARTFORD, CT) – Seven weeks ahead of schedule, Access Health CT (AHCT) today announced that it has surpassed its self-imposed goal of enrolling 100,000 Connecticut residents and small businesses in qualify, affordable health care coverage. The total number of enrollees stood at 121,983 as of close of business yesterday. The total number of enrollees in private insurance plans is 50,665 or 41.5 percent of total enrollees.
The 50,665 figure is a 15.5% increase over their January 15 total of 43,840, and the remaining 71,318 is a whopping 69% increase over their prior 42,161 tally.
An article in Bloomberg Businessweek about the sluggish early enrollment in SHOP (Small Business) exchanges includes this graphic, which gives updated enrollment data for 5 states. I already have the 2,155 California and 5,000 New York numbers, but didn't have any data for Connecticut or Kentucky until now. Colorado was up to 1,055 previously, so this update bumps it up by 241. Add that to the 500 in Connecticut and 200 in Kentucky, and it's 941 more people with health insurance who didn't have it before. Not much, but every addition counts...
Two quick 'n simple updates: Oregon's "direct" Medicaid enrollments are up another 3,000, while the 86,000 total enrollments in Connecticut now have precise numbers (instead of ones based on percentages the other day). This knocks their private tally down by 880 while increasing the Medicaid number by the same amount.
More than three months after it was supposed to launch, Cover Oregon's website still can't enroll anyone from start to finish. Using a backup process that requires workers to process applications by hand, the state has managed to enroll 65,000 people in health coverage, about 23,000 of them in private insurance and the rest in the Oregon Health Plan, the state's version of Medicaid.
Another 118,000 have enrolled in Medicaid through a separate process that bypasses the exchange.
Access Health CT has signed up more than 86,001 customers by the end of Wednesday, which includes 43,840 people in private plans and 42,161 who learned they are income eligible for government-funded Medicaid.
...and, just like that, we're back up above the 10M grand total mark again. Connecticut's private QHP enrollment tally just increased from 40,000 to 44,720, cancelling out the 3,702 that we just "lost" from Nevada a few moments ago. Medicaid/CHIP enrollments also went up by several thousand.
As of Thursday morning, Access Health CT had enrolled a total of 86,000 people, said Kevin Counihan, the marketplace's chief executive. He said about 500 to 1,000 enrollees are being added a day. That means the marketplace, also called an exchange, is on track to meet or exceed its goal of enrolling 100,000 people once the open enrollment period ends on March 31, he said.
Of those 86,000 people, Counihan said 52 percent signed up for private coverage and 48 percent for government-funded Medicaid.
Connecticut continues to Do It Right®. Not only have they broken their own combined goal by 60%, they're also now 37% past their fair share of the CBO's original 7 million QHP figure. The exchange's CEO is quoted in the article as saying that CT doesn't expect to see much of a "March surge", but that isn't too concerning to me--they're already doing fantastic, so any enrollment rate increase wouldn't be as dramatic by comparison anyway.
Two nice finds about Connecticut from contributor deaconblues today. The first article (about CT shopping their successful exchange website package around to other states) gives the QHP enrollment through 3/01 as roughly 58,000; this is up from 53,673 eleven days earlier, an increase of 4,327.
