This is really more of a confirmation of my own estimates than anything; I had Iowa down as around 81K "Strict Expansion" plus another 800 or so "Woodworkers". The actual total appears to be slightly less: 78,860. Not sure what the breakout between the two is, I'm going to assume roughly 75K "strict" and another 3,860 "woodworkers" for now:
The federal report also said that 78,860 Iowans more were enrolled in Medicaid or related programs at the end of March than were enrolled in those programs last fall. Medicaid is a joint federal and state health-care program for the poor. Under the Affordable Care Act, states could opt to expand their Medicaid programs' rules to allow more poor, working-age adults to join. Iowa chose to do so with a pair of programs, the Health and Wellness Plan and the Marketplace Choice Plan, which have similarities to Medicaid. There is no deadline for Medicaid enrollment. People who qualify for the public plans can sign up any time.
Leigh McGivern of coOportunity Health has helpfully provided their final (well, near-final...through 4/14) tallies for both on- and off-exchange enrollments. The exchange-based numbers aren't really relevant to me since those are reported by HHS, but the off-exchange QHPs and ESI's are vital:
IOWA
Individual/Family members: 18,358 (10,809 on exchange/7,549 off exchange)
Small group members: 7,848
Large group members: 274
NEBRASKA
Individual/Family members: 30,668 (20,308 on exchange/10,360 off exchange)
Small group members: 11,292
Large group members: 2,774
TOTAL ON EXCHANGE IOWA AND NEBRASKA (individuals/families): 31,117
TOTAL OFF EXCHANGE IOWA AND NEBRASKA (individuals/families): 17,909
TOTAL BUSINESS (employees and dependents) IOWA AND NEBRASKA: 22,188
TOTAL BOTH STATES ON AND OFF EXCHANGE (individuals/families/businesses): 71,214
This article contains a breakdown between "strict expansion" (30,000) and "bulk transfers" (51,000), modified from the 13,000 and 55,000 prior estimates (not sure what happened to the other 4,000 who were listed as being transferred from IowaCare previously). Still a net gain of 13,000 people.
In addition, state officials say about 81,000 Iowans have enrolled in the new Iowa Health and Wellness Plan or Marketplace Choice Plan, which are Iowa’s versions of an expanded Medicaid program.
About 51,000 of those people used to have limited coverage from IowaCare, a program that ended Dec. 31.
Interestingly, there's even a reference to a specific "woodworker" figure
In February, 403,609 people were enrolled in the program. That represented an increase of 0.5 percent from the 401,582 who were in the program in February 2013.
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!
Back in January, I found my first solid data on off-exchange enrollments via a Co-Op operating in Iowa and Nebraska called CoOportunity. They helpfully provided their data through January 24, which totalled 10,166 off-exchange enrollments in Iowa and antoher 17,779 in Nebraska.
Last week, they provided an update to these figures. When you add off-exchange individual/family policies to small & large group policies (which are "off-exchange" by definition, since the HC.gov SHOP system isn't operational yet...you get redirected to the individual companies/co-ops), Iowa is up to 12,293 and Nebraska is up to 19,959, as of February 24.
Iowa's Medicaid total just got a nice shot in the arm. It seems that 55,034 Iowans who were previously enrolled in IowaCare have been bulk-transferred over ot Medicaid proper, on top of over 13,000 additional new enrollees. All of these people are specifically listed as being due to ACA Medicaid expansion, they are not woodworkers.
While the total above is 67,893, another article from the next day lists the exchange-based enrollments as "more than 13,000", so I've bumped it up by another 142.
More than 50,000 former IowaCare members automatically were enrolled in the new system, giving them access to more services and a choice in who provides their health care, including – in many cases – local options, McCoy said.
Including those who have signed up since, the Iowa Health and Wellness Plan through mid-February boasted a total enrollment of 67,893 – 55,034 in the wellness plan and 12,859 via the marketplace choice, according to McCoy.
Leigh McGivern, PR & Social Media Manager for CoOportunity Health of Iowa and Nebraska, has done me a huge favor by agreeing to release the Co-Op's on-exchange andoff-exchange (direct) enrollment figures through January 24!
Unfortunately, the on-exchange numbers are both less than the 12/28 totals for either states (there are 2 insurance companies operating on Iowa's exchange and 3 on Nebraska's), so I don't know how much those have gone up since December, but the off-exchange numbers are quite impressive and very telling! I'm not breaking out the age data, but here's the key numbers:
Iowa Off-Exchange QHP Enrollments: 5,325 Individual; 4,694 Small Group; 147 Large Group = 10,166
Nebraska Off-Exchange QHP Enrollments: 7,867 Individual; 8,079 Small Group; 1,833 Large Group = 17,779
Between the two, that's nearly 28,000 more people added to the Private QHP tally.
In a December 23rd interview with the Des Moines Register, CoOportunity Health (1 of 2 companies participating in IA's ACA exchange (and 1 of 3 participating in NE) said they had enrolled 2,577 people in private plans in Iowa via the HC.gov exchange as of 12/20. However, they also mentioned a total of 8,583 enrollments state-wide as of 12/20, meaning another 6,006 people were enrolled directly through the company, bypassing the exchange completely.
I contacted Leigh McGivern, the PR representative for CoOportunity Health, who informed me that CoOportunity operates in Nebraska as well, and gave me more recent and detailed numbers for both states: 3,468 exchange-based enrollments (not sure if this is people or households) in Iowa, and another 7,362 exchange-based enrollments in Nebraska.
(Note: The spreadsheet numbers for IA & NE were actually updated with this data a couple of weeks ago, but it took me this long to get around to writing up the explanation)
In a December 23rd interview with the Des Moines Register, CoOportunity Health (1 of 2 companies participating in IA's ACA exchange (and 1 of 3 participating in NE) said they had enrolled 2,577 people in private plans via the HC.gov exchange as of 12/20. However, they also mentioned a total of 8,583 enrollments state-wide as of 12/20, meaning another 6,006 people were enrolled directly through the company, bypassing the exchange completely.
I contacted Leigh McGivern, the PR representative for CoOportunity Health, who informed me that CoOportunity operates in Nebraska as well, and gave me more recent and detailed numbers for both states: 3,468 exchange-based enrollments (not sure if this is people or households) in Iowa, and another 7,362 exchange-based enrollments in Nebraska.