In 2014, Massachusetts' ACA exchange website was one of the biggest disasters of the site rollouts, managing to enroll fewer than 32,000 people while flushing tens of millions of dollars down the drain. The biggest problem was that the system couldn't accurately determine whether enrollees were eligibile for federal tax credits or not...which was kind of important since around 85% of enrollees nationally qualify for them.
This was especially embarrassing given that not only is Massachusetts considered a major technology base (hey, it's right there in the name: Massachusetts Institute of Technology...), it was also, of course, the home of the precursor to the Affordable Care Act, aka "RomneyCare". You can read the entire ugly story in vivid detail thanks to Ed Lyon's amasingly detailed Health Connector Autopsy Report.
Massachusetts' #OE3 enrollment numbers have to be handled a little carefully. Unlike most exchanges which mainly report the number of Qualified Health Plan (QHP) selections (ie, placed in cart & checked out), the Massachusetts Health Connector is very careful to specify how many of those are actually entered into the system and have paid their first monthly premium.
Rep. Rusche asked what our target enrollment is for this cycle and what barriers we see in making those targets. Mr. Kelly said the team is focused on the 80% goal of 92,000 as our enrollment target.Premium increases are a potential barrier. Net premium is a relatively small increase for most consumers, and each consumer will experience something different depending Page 5 of 14 on their plan, their location, their carrier, etc. We feel that while the premiums are increasing the relatively small net premium increase will mitigate this barrier to a large degree.
When I asked for clarification, they informed me that:
We currently have 86,659 effectuated enrollments with Your Health Idaho, as of September 15. The 92,000 would also refer to effectuated enrollments.
The Massachusetts Health Connector held their monthly board meeting last week and have released their September dashboard report with a whole mess of demographic data for Baystate-obsessed nerds to revel in.
Effectuated QHPs have reached 179,470 enrollees...a whopping 38.930 higher (28%) than at the end of Open Enrollment.
While the national effectuation number is likely around 3% lower today than it was in March (9.9 million vs. 10.2 million), in Massachusetts it's 45% higher. There's two main reasons for this, both connected to "ConnectorCare", which is unique to Massachusetts. ConnectorCare consists of the same low-end Qualified Health Plans that anyone can purchase (ie, they're still counted as QHPs in the national tally), except that in addition to the federal Advanced Premium Tax Credits (APTC), enrollees in ConnectorCare also receive additional state-based financial assistance, making them even more attractive to enrollees. In addition, however, unlike "normal" APTC or Full Price QHPs, which are limited to the official open enrollment period for most people, ConnectorCare enrollment, like Medicaid/CHIP, is open year round. That makes a dramatic difference, as you can see below; the vast bulk of the net QHP enrollment increase since March is thanks to ConnectorCare additions.
In addition, MA is the only state I know of which actively reports their attrition numbers--that is, so far this year they've had just 17,246 people drop their QHP policies, meaning a total of 196,716 people have selected a plan and paid at least their first monthly premium.
Assuming a 90% payment rate (confirmed for Massachusetts back in April), this also suggests that the cumulative QHP selection total should be roughly 218,000 people to date, which is only significant to me and The Graph.
But wait, there's more! Look below and you'll see a whole mess of pie charts, bar charts and line charts, breaking out everything from Metal Level selections and Market Share by Provider to SHOP enrollments (5,562 lives covered as of October 1st) and even Dental Plans!
The Massachusetts Health Connector just held their monthly board meeting this morning, and have released the August dashboard report with a whole mess of demographic data for Baystate-obsessed nerds to revel in.
Effectuated QHPs have reached 175,605 enrollees...a whopping 35,065 higher (25%) than at the end of Open Enrollment.
While the national effectuation number is 2.3% lower or so today than it was in March (9.95 million vs. 10.19 million), in Massachusetts it's 42% higher. There's two main reasons for this, both connected to "ConnectorCare", which is unique to Massachusetts. ConnectorCare consists of the same low-end Qualified Health Plans that anyone can purchase (ie, they're still counted as QHPs in the national tally), except that in addition to the federal Advanced Premium Tax Credits (APTC), enrollees in ConnectorCare also receive additional state-based financial assistance, making them even more attractive to enrollees. In addition, however, unlike "normal" APTC or Full Price QHPs, which are limited to the official open enrollment period for most people, ConnectorCare enrollment, like Medicaid/CHIP, is open year round. That makes a dramatic difference, as you can see below; the vast bulk of the net QHP enrollment increase since March is thanks to ConnectorCare additions.
In addition, MA is the only state I know of which actively reports their attrition numbers--that is, so far this year they've had just 16,874 people drop their QHP policies, meaning a total of 192,479 people have selected a plan and paid at least their first monthly premium.
Assuming a 90% payment rate (confirmed for Massachusetts back in April), this also suggests that the cumulative QHP selection total should be roughly 213,000 people to date, which is only significant to me and The Graph.
But wait, there's more! Look below and you'll see a whole mess of pie charts, bar charts and line charts, breaking out everything from Metal Level selections and Market Share by Provider to SHOP enrollments (5,486 lives covered as of September 1st) and even Dental Plans!
The new rates will affect about 300,000 people who buy health insurance on their own or work for small businesses with 50 or fewer employees and will renew plans in January.
...The rate hikes approved by the state mean that premiums for individuals and small businesses will rise 6.3 percent next year, on average, but the costs for some plans will rise more, and others less. This year, rates for individuals and small employers rose an average of 3.1 percent in January, after increasing 1.9 percent in 2014.
YES, I KNOW ABOUT THE BIG CMS OFF-SEASON QHP REPORT released a couple of hours ago, and I'll be posting about that next, but I just got back from an end-of-summer camp carnival thing with my kid, and want to make sure I get Massachusetts crossed off the list first.
The Massachusetts Health Connector just held their monthly board meeting this morning, and have released the July dashboard report with a whole mess of demographic data for Baystate-obsessed nerds to revel in.
I've pasted screen shots of every page of the report below (and there's a link to the PDF version above), but here's the main takeaways:
Effectuated QHPs have reached 170.5K...a whopping 45,161 higher than at the end of Open Enrollment!
While the national effectuation number is likely only 2% or so higher today than it was in March (likely 10.4 million vs. 10.2 million), in Massachusetts it's 36% higher. There's two main reasons for this, both connected to "ConnectorCare", which is unique to Massachusetts. ConnectorCare consists of the same low-end Qualified Health Plans that anyone can purchase (ie, they're still counted as QHPs in the national tally), except that in addition to the federal Advanced Premium Tax Credits (APTC), enrollees in ConnectorCare also receive additional state-based financial assistance, making them even more attractive to enrollees. In addition, however, unlike "normal" APTC or Full Price QHPs, which are limited to the official open enrollment period for most people, ConnectorCare enrollment, like Medicaid/CHIP, is open year round. That makes a dramatic difference, as you can see below; over 85% of the net QHP enrollment increase since March is thanks to ConnectorCare additions.
In addition, MA is the only state I know of which actively reports their attrition numbers--that is, so far this year they've had just 16,631 people drop their QHP policies, meaning a total of 187,194 people have selected a plan and paid at least their first monthly premium.
Assuming a 90% payment rate (confirmed for Massachusetts back in April), this also suggests that the cumulative QHP selection total should be roughly 208,000 people to date, which is only significant to me and The Graph.
But wait, there's more! Look below and you'll see a whole mess of pie charts, bar charts and line charts, breaking out everything from Metal Level selections and Market Share by Provider to SHOP enrollments (5,302 lives covered as of August 1st) and even Dental Plans!
Whoa, Nelly! Ask and ye shall receive...I was just sent a copy of the June report from the Massachusetts Health Connector, and there's some fasinating healthcare data nerd stuff included.
I've pasted screen shots of every page of the report below (and there's a link to the PDF version at the bottom), but here's the main takeaways:
Effectuated QHPs have reached nearly 166,000...a whopping 40,520 higher than at the end of Open Enrollment!
While the national effectuation number is likely only 2% or so higher today than it was in March (likely 10.3 - 10.4 million vs. 10.2 million), in Massachusetts it's 32% higher. There's two main reasons for this, both connected to "ConnectorCare", which is unique to Massachusetts. ConnectorCare consists of the same low-end Qualified Health Plans that anyone can purchase (ie, they're still counted as QHPs in the national tally), except that in addition to the federal Advanced Premium Tax Credits (APTC), enrollees in ConnectorCare also receive additional state-based financial assistance, making them even more attractive to enrollees. In addition, however, unlike "normal" APTC or Full Price QHPs, which are limited to the official open enrollment period for most people, ConnectorCare enrollment, like Medicaid/CHIP, is open year round. That makes a dramatic difference, as you can see below; over 85% of the net QHP enrollment increase since March is thanks to ConnectorCare additions.
In addition, MA is the only state I know of which actively reports their attrition numbers--that is, so far this year they've had 13,635 people drop their QHP policies, meaning a total of 179,557 people have selected a plan and paid at least their first monthly premium.
Assuming a 90% payment rate (confirmed for Massachusetts back in April), this also suggests that the cumulative QHP selection total should be roughly 200,000 people to date, which is only significant to me and The Graph.
When you add the MA factor to the other state-level numbers I've received from Washington State, Colorado and Maryland, this is very strong evidence that the current effectuated number as of July nationally is more like 10.4 million vs. the 10.3 million I've been assuming.
But wait, there's more! Look below and you'll see a whole mess of pie charts, bar charts and line charts, breaking out everything from Metal Level selections and Market Share by Provider to SHOP enrollments (5,247 lives covered as of July 1st) and even Dental Plans!
