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!
So far there have been two comprehensive post-Open Enrollment Period reports released. The first was for Washington State, posted a couple of weeks ago; the second was for Massachusetts, posted last week. While both reports were chock full of all sorts of data-nuggety goodness, including updated paid QHP numbers, neither one included one crucial number: How many total QHP selections there have been in each state since Open Enrollment ended in February.
The Massachusetts Health Connector board held their monthly meeting today, which included an updated enrollment report which is chock-full of all sorts of data-nerd charts and graphs; a bonanza for folks like myself. Best of all, it runs all the way through 3/31, making the the most up-to-date report I have for any state at the moment.
We're in a bit of an in-between phase this week. Open Enrollment is officially over, and the Tax Season special enrollment period doesn't start until Sunday in most states.
However, the Massachusetts Health Connector has provided me with a handy report which gives some interesting drill-down data. Most of it is stuff I don't really track anyway, but some of it I do and the rest may be of interest to some. I'm only focusing on a few items, the PDF itself has a bunch more:
This isn't an exact apples-to-apples comparison, since the Massachusetts number includes the "overtime" extension period while the other 5 states only run through 2/15/15, but I thought it would be useful to see how the 6 exchanges which had widespread technical issues last year fared this time around. Obviously other states like Washington and California had some snafus, but these are the ones which were seriously hosed last year to the point of requiring massive overhauls or which were completely scrapped in favor of a new platform (I'm not including HC.gov itself here since everyone already knows what massive technical improvements they've made).
The chart below refers specifically to QHP selections only (whether paid or not), and compares the 2015 open enrollment period (11/15/14 - 2/15/15...or 2/26 in the case of MA) against the 2014 open enrollment period (10/1/13 - 4/19/14). I've also included some notes for context.
As I noted earlier, I've been expecting final #OE2 numbers from at least two states, Massachusetts & Minnesota. MA has just come through with an extremely detailed report.
In addition, they've given me a partial answer to my earlier question: Yes, they do plan on releasing off-season enrollment data at least monthly (via their board meetings), and possibly weekly (I'm guessing daily would be too much to ask during the off-season). So, I can count on off-season data from at least 1 state...49+DC to go...
They also said that they don't know about a Tax Season Special Enrollment Period yet, and did not have any SHOP data or Medicaid expansion-vs-woodworker data yet.
Finally, one interesting MA-specific quirk: "ConnectorCare" enrollees...which are QHP enrollees but are heavily subsidized by the state as well (I think this is sort of like Arkansas' Medicaid "private option"?)...can be enrolled in year-round. This could be significant during the off-season, espeically since this makes up 64% of the total QHP number to date.
With that, in the end, Massachusetts final official numbers are:
