It’s hard work trying to get people to sign up for health insurance when their care is mostly free to them. Andrea Thomas is working to get Alaska Natives in Sitka, Alaska, to do just that. She’s the outreach and enrollment manager at SouthEast Alaska Regional Health Consortium (SEARHC), and it’s her job to sign people up for health insurance coverage through exchanges created as a result of the Affordable Care Act.
To get a sense of just how uphill Thomas’s battle is, consider this: Of the more than 100,000 people who live in Alaska and self-identify as Alaska Native or American Indian, only 115 had signed up for health insurance through an Affordable Care Act exchange as of March 31. Alaska Natives and American Indians are exempt from tax penalties for not signing up for health insurance.
While the technical overhauls/transfers of exchanges in states like Oregon, Nevada, Massachusetts and Maryland have been taking up all of the "ACA tech problem" news (the former two are moving to HC.gov for 2015; the latter two are completely overhauling their own websites), Hawaii's technical woes seem to always have operated in something of a news vacuum. The Hawaii website problems were always just as bad as some of the other states listed, yet not once have I received any indication of whether they were abandoning their software like OR & NV or fixing it like MA & MD.
Over the past couple of weeks, the answer seems to have revealed itself: The Hawaii Health Connector website has been revamped...as a WordPress-based site. However, this appears to only be the "welcome/info" portal; actually clicking the "Enroll" links takes you to a different domain name at ConnectHawaii.com which seems to be the actual HI exchange.
Yes, 49 people is pretty tiny even for a state with as low an uninsured population as Hawaii, but it's still further evidence that the drop in QHP enrollments in the first week or so of July was either a typo or a data entry glitch, as the total has since risen for 2 weeks straight. SHOP enrollments haven't changed since 7/15:
Connector Updates as of July 19, 2014
33,042 Applications completed in the Individual Marketplace 9,724 Individuals and families enrolled in the Individual Marketplace
689 Employers applied to SHOP Marketplace
1071 Employees and dependents enrolled via SHOP Marketplace*
Huh. A week ago I posted a Hawaii update which noted that exchange QHPs for Hawaii had actually dropped by 156 people from 6/28 through 7/05. This was quickly followed by similarly huge enrollment drop-off figures out of both Oregon and Minnesota.
32,991 Applications completed in the Individual Marketplace 9,675 Individuals and families enrolled in the Individual Marketplace
675 Employers applied to SHOP Marketplace 1071 Employees and dependents enrolled via SHOP Marketplace*
* as of July 15, 2014
When we last checked in on Hawaii's ACA exchange on 6/21, the QHP tally stood at 9,586 people, and another 965 SHOP enrollees.
There have been 2 updates from the exchange since then; QHPs went up another 12 over the next week (6/28)...but in the most recent update, the number has dropped down to 9,442...a loss of 156 people:
Connector Updates for July 5, 2014
Total since October 1, 2013
32,959 Applications completed in the Individual Marketplace 9,442 Individuals and families enrolled in the Individual Marketplace
Only 58 more QHPs but, interestingly, 104 more people on SHOP plans...
Connector Updates for June 21, 2014
32,802 Applications completed in the Individual Marketplace 9,586 Individuals and families enrolled in the Individual Marketplace 643 Employers applied to SHOP Marketplace 965 Employees and dependents enrolled via SHOP Marketplace
Connector Updates for June 7, 2014
Total since October 1, 2013
32,625 Applications completed in the Individual Marketplace 9,482 Individuals and families enrolled in the Individual Marketplace
631 Employers applied to SHOP Marketplace 846 Employees and dependents enrolled via SHOP Marketplace
32,208 Applications completed in the Individual Marketplace 9,432 Individuals and families enrolled in the Individual Marketplace
629 Employers applied to SHOP Marketplace 851 Employees and dependents enrolled via SHOP Marketplace
Not exactly an earth-shattering update, but Hawaii has, interestingly, managed to increase their SHOP enrollments by over 20% in the past week.
Plus, they, along with Oregon and Minnesota, get kudos from me for continuing regular updates regardless of how minor the changes are. Wish NY, CA and HHS would follow their lead on this topic, at least (obviously not so much the technical side of things...)
Total since October 1, 2013
32,114 Applications completed in the Individual Marketplace 9,414 Individuals and families enrolled in the Individual Marketplace
618 Employers applied to SHOP Marketplace 773 Employees and dependents enrolled via SHOP Marketplace
