When I posted Maryland's July enrollment update, I noted that the effectuated exchange-based QHP number had actually gone up slightly from April through July (from 125,535 to 126,346). Not much of an increase, of course, but the fact that this number increased at all was significant since it indicated that, as I expected, new additions to the exchange QHP pool thanks to the "life event" options are slightly outpacing those dropping their policies during the off-season.
BALTIMORE (Aug. 18, 2015) -- As of Aug. 13th, 606,226 Marylanders have enrolled in quality, affordable health coverage for 2015 through Maryland’s state-based insurance marketplace.
Long-time readers (and anyone from Maryland, I presume) know that the Old Line State (I have no idea whether that nickname is actually widely used?) was among those whose 2014 ACA exchange website turned out to be a huge technical mess. Oregon and Nevada received most of the headlines because they both ended up scrapping theirs completely and moving home to HealthCare.Gov this year (to be followed by Hawaii in 2016), but along with Massachusetts, Maryland went the "Try, Try Again" route.
Not sure how this one got by me, but the Maryland Health Benefit Exchange actually released some updated enrollment numbers over a week ago:
Nearly a half-million Marylanders — 493,346 — have enrolled in quality, affordable health coverage through Maryland Health Connection for 2015.
That includes 126,346 people enrolled in private Qualified Health Plans and 367,000 enrolled in Medicaid from Nov. 15, 2014 through July 5, 2015. About 92 percent of enrollees through the state’s health insurance marketplace are receiving some form of financial assistance.
Medicaid enrollments are year-round. And while open enrollment for private health insurance for 2015 coverage ended in February, people may still enroll if they have a qualified “life event.”
The "92% receiving financial assistance" bit is slightly misleading; that's true, but only because the Medicaid enrollees are lumped in. If you're talking about QHPs only, it's more like 69% (87.2K out of 126.3K). Whether that's a good or bad thing obviously depends on your POV.
Maryland's rate request website is an exercise in frustration. At first glance, it looks very cut and dried: A full table of each health insurance company, broken out by either individual or small group market, whether the filing is for policies sold on or off the ACA exchange, and the "average % change requested", along with direct links to the actual filing documents (where, presumably, I can dig up the crucial enrollment numbers, which are vital to determining the weighted average rate requests).
Unfortunately, once you get into the actual documents...they're completely scattershot. Some companies list the number of enrollees who would be impacted by the requested rate changes; some don't. That makes it impossible to determine the market share, which in turn means there's no way of weighting the average.
BALTIMORE (May 1, 2015) — More than 4,700 Marylanders took advantage of a special six week enrollment period that allowed them to enroll for health insurance to avoid an additional federal tax penalty for 2015 if they had already owed a tax penalty for lacking health coverage in 2014.
Marylanders who applied for the special enrollment period, which ran from March 15 through yesterday, attested that they owe the penalty for lacking health insurance in 2014 and that they became aware of this after the Feb. 15 close of open enrollment for 2015 coverage.
ALERT: Our call center has closed today due to the city disturbances. Find in-person help: http://t.co/HYoHhs8uRf
— MD Health Connection (@MarylandConnect) April 28, 2015
However, any impact on actual ACA enrollments should be nominal.
Maryland had 120,145 QHP selections during open enrollment. Assuming my combined #ACATaxTime + "normal" Off-Season enrollment rate estimate of roughly 10,500 people per day nationally (through Thursday the 30th, anyway) is accurate, MD's share of this should be roughly 1% of this, or around 108 people per day at the moment. Even then, only around 1/3 of the total would be specifically for the tax season special enrollment period (the others would presumably just be delayed by a few days).
Hmmm...the headline looks bad, but when you read further it's clearly a matter of perspective more than anything else:
Maryland's health insurance exchange improperly billed the federal government $28.4 million, a Department of Health and Human Services audit reported Friday.
An inspector general's probe found a lack of oversight and internal controls, not criminal wrongdoing, was the cause of the exchange's problems since the marketplace opened in 2013.
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!!
MARYLAND HEALTH CONNECTION ADDING ENROLLMENT PERIOD FOR MARYLANDERS UNAWARE THEY WOULD OWE TAX PENALTY WITHOUT COVERAGE
Special Enrollment Period will run March 15 through April 30
BALTIMORE (Feb. 25, 2015) — Maryland Health Connection is allowing consumers who owe a tax penalty for not having health coverage in 2014 to still enroll for 2015 coverage through a special enrollment period that will run March 15 through April 30.
Consumers who owe or have paid a tax penalty for not having coverage in 2014 would pay a higher penalty for this year if they also did not enroll for 2015. The open enrollment period to buy a Qualified Health Plan for 2015 ended Feb. 15.
The special enrollment period is for Marylanders who must pay the penalty for lacking health insurance in 2014 and who attest that they became aware of the penalty during this income tax filing season after the Feb. 15 close of open enrollment for 2015 coverage.
264,000 Marylanders enrolled through Maryland Health Connection for 2015 Qualified Health Plan enrollments top 119,000
Enrollments “in the pipeline” can be completed by Feb. 28
Overview: 264,245 Marylanders enrolled through Maryland Health Connection from Nov. 15, 2014 to Feb. 15, 2015. That includes 119,096 people enrolled in private Qualified Health Plans (QHP) and 145,149 enrolled in Medicaid.
Due to high demand during the final weekend of open enrollment, Maryland Health Benefit Exchange is allowing people who started an application at MarylandHealthConnection.gov or contacted the call center by Feb. 15 to complete the process by Feb. 28. Figures for open enrollment will be revised after Feb . 28 to account for those completed enrollments.
