I'm expecting final official #OE2 enrollment reports from Massachusetts and Minnesota later today, but otherwise have to catch up on a bunch of my actual day job work. Here's three quick things to note:
MARYLAND: The Maryland Health Connection has released a big slideshow PDF with a mountain of demographic info. The only gripe I have is that it only runs through 2/15, so doesn't include the extra folks who signed up during the #ACAOvertime period. Data nerds, rejoice!!
The good news is that the DC exchange has released their official enrollment data through 2/15. The bad news is that it's slightly lower than I had previously thought, for exactly the reason that bothered me a few weeks back...they kept listing the cumulative enrollments since October 2013, mixing in those who never paid or who didn't renew for 2014. Fortunately, the difference is pretty minor:
Today, the DC Health Benefit Exchange Authority (HBX) released individual marketplace data for the second open enrollment period for DCHealthLink.com, the District’s online health insurance marketplace for individuals, families and small businesses.
The DC exchange may be small, but every person counts. The only irritating thing about their reports is that they always refer to them as being cumulative since October 2013, instead of only counting those who have enrolled or renewed their policies since 11/15/14. I went through this a few weeks back and concluded that yes, the numbers below are accurate for 2015:
More Than 80,500 People Enrolled in Health Coverage Through DC Health Link
Friday, February 13, 2015
Enrollment
From October 1, 2013 to February 8, 2015, 80,578 people have enrolled in health insurance coverage through DC Health Link in private insurance or Medicaid:
20,358 people enrolled in a private qualified health plan,
44,457 people have been determined eligible for Medicaid, and
15,763 people enrolled through the DC Health Link small business marketplace (includes Congressional enrollment).
The DC exchange doesn't post updates often, but when they do it's simple, to the point data...and as a bonus, they're one of the few exchanges to include SHOP data (probably because they're one of the few where SHOP enrollments are above 4 figures, thanks to the weird ACA rule requiring Congressional staffers to enroll using it).
From October 1, 2013 to January 11, 2015, over 74,100 people have enrolled in health insurance coverage through DC Health Link in private health plans and Medicaid:
These numbers are pretty good for DC...except that there's an important caveat: They're all cumulative numbers since October 1st, 2013, making it trickier to parse out:
More Than 71,000 People Enrolled in Health Coverage Through DC Health Link
Wednesday, December 24, 2014
Enrollment
From October 1, 2013 to December 21, 2014, over 71,500 people have enrolled in health insurance coverage through DC Health Link in private health plans or Medicaid:
18,773 people, including new customers from the 2nd Open Enrollment Period , have enrolled in private health plans through the DC Health Link individual and family marketplace; 37,457 people were determined eligible for Medicaid coverage through DC Health Link; and 15,284 people enrolled through the DC Health Link small business marketplace and members and staff from US Congress.
Fortunately, I have most of the 2014 data as well so we can break this out:
Nearly 15,000 people signed up for coverage through D.C. Health Link to begin by Jan. 1, officials announced this week.
The D.C. Health Benefit Exchange Authority reported 1,886 new enrollees and 13,100 people who have re-enrolled in private health insurance plans so far in this second open enrollment period under the Affordable Care Act. Earlier this month,officials said there could be up to 500 applications that weren't completed by the first deadline to obtain health coverage by Jan. 1 because of a glitch in the system's new features. Officials said all of those impacted enrollees would have coverage by Jan. 1.
Between Nov. 15 and Dec. 21, the D.C. Health Link website had 56,318 visitors with 109,058 visits. It fielded 25,667 calls to its customer service center.
OK, that's 14,986 total for DC, and this gets another chunk of renewals off the books.
OK, that's more like it...about 500 people in DC are being contacted by exchange personnel regarding technical issues, but over 2,600 made it through under the wire:
D.C. Health Exchange Director Mila Kofman said as many as 500 applications were left in limbo at 9 p.m. Monday, the cutoff for selecting coverage that would take effect on Jan. 1.
Kofman said 2,631 people enrolled successfully.
Employees at the exchange, known as D.C. Health Link, will spend the next several days contacting each applicant by phone or e-mail to walk them through a follow-up process to ensure unfinished applications are processed and those residents can begin receiving coverage beginning next month as planned, Kofman said.
DC had around 10,000 enrollees to start with; presumably the 2,631 figure is a mix of renewals and new additions.
District of Columbia: DC Health Link has enrolled 1,413 people, both new and renewed applications, according to data collected by last week Kaiser Health News.
Grammar aside, I'll assume "last week" means "through Friday the 12th".
MASSACHUSETTS: The MA Health Connector allows for online premium payments (and in fact, payments have to be made to the exchange, not to the insurance company itself). The good news is that the website & billing system appear to be working properly this year, a vast improvement over last year's disaster. The bad news (or, odd news anyway) is that for some reason the system requires you to pay using only direct electronic fund transfers or a written check--it does not accept credit card payments!
I don't know if this is for technical reasons (which I doubt) or policy reasons (avoiding the 2.5% transaction fees or whatever), but it seems very odd to me.
HAWAII: Not only hasn't the HI Health Connector provided any enrollment updates since open enrollment started again on November 15th, they haven't even updated their enrollment report section since July 26th! Guys, either post an update or at least remove the link entirely; keeping it as is, locked in on 7/26 is just embarrassing.
A nice, detailed but to-the-point update out of DC (which supersedes my earlier post):
Meanwhile, as of Monday, D.C. Health Link had a little more than 9,000 visits to its website from about 6,300 visitors. The exchange had 708 total applications and 212 plan selections for 249 covered lives. Officials said they were off to a strong start toward their enrollment goals this year, though they've declined to disclose specific numbers.
This also shows the importance of using the correct number:
