At yesterday's MNsure Legislative Oversight Committee meeting, CEO Allison O'Toole reported that as of January 15, MNsure had enrolled 75,000 Minnesotans into private health insurance coverage since the beginning of open enrollment, November 1, 2015.
As of January 10, MNsure had enrolled 69,671 Minnesotans into private coverage. This means MNsure has seen an increase of 5,329 private plan enrollments in five days. In addition, about 45 percent of private plan enrollees are new to MNsure for 2016. This is the highest percentage of new enrollees nationwide.
MNsure's goal is to enroll 83,000 Minnesotans by the end of open enrollment.
This will be the final enrollment update until preliminary end of open enrollment numbers are released on Monday, February 1.
As a reminder, the 2016 open enrollment period ends on Sunday, January 31. The MNsure Contact Center will be open extended hours on Saturday, January 30, from 8 a.m. - 8 p.m., and on Sunday, January 31, from 8 a.m. - midnight.
Minnesota held their monthly board meeting. At first glance, it looks like they've managed to add 1,991 QHPs since December 28th, which would be impressive...except that, as a later slide shows, 1,871 of these are due to including their SHOP (small business) enrollees in today's number versus these folks not being included in the news article a week or so ago.
Nothing wrong with this, actually, but it does mean that the net gain of individual market QHPs is far less impressive (just 120), for a total of 67,800:
UPDATE/CORRECTION: I've been informed by the MNsure exchange that, in fact, they did add 1,991 individual QHP enrollments since 12/28/15 after all; apparently the 67,680 figure from a couple of weeks back also included SHOP QHPs, so the net increase really is nearly 2,000 people, which is indeed very impressive.
Adding 1,991 in just 13 days represents a 3.0% increase during the slowest part of the enrollment period. By comparison, as I noted earlier today, HC.gov added just 157,536 people from 12/27 - 1/09...or only 1.8% in 14 days. Minnesota has basically been doubling the enrollment rate of the federal exchange since Christmas, which is interesting even if the raw numbers are still small.
In addition, as MNsure noted in their correction: "45% of our QHP enrollments are NEW to MNsure in 2016. That's the highest percentage nationwide according to the data HHS released about a week and a half ago now."
My apologies for the error, and mazel tov on the improved numbers!
A subcommittee of a state task force recommended Monday continuing with a state-run health insurance exchange like MNsure for now, rather than transferring Minnesotans to the national exchange called HealthCare.gov
Moving to the federal website would be costly and wouldn't work with the state's MinnesotaCare insurance program, said a report endorsed by the 11-person subcommittee of the state task force on health care finance.
Plus, by moving to HealthCare.gov, the state would lose control over its network of health insurance navigators that help people enroll in coverage, according to the report.
I've been getting a little worried about the Minnesota exchange of late. Their first two years were pretty rough, and their most recent update prior to today had them at only 26.5K QHPs as of 12/13. Of course, that didn't include the critical final few days before the January enrollment deadline...nor did it include the extended deadline for Minnesota, which was pushed all the way out to 12/28.
Not an official data update, but a nice catch from Louise Norris (the article is mainly about MNsure bumping out their enrollment deadline from 12/15 until 12/28):
As of Sunday, MNsure reported 26,532 sign-ups in private insurance policies through the exchange, including 18,595 new enrollees. The overall sign-up tally is up by more than 8,800 people in a five-day period, and the new enrollee figure is up by 6,415 people.
Thanks to Louise Norris for the heads up! MNsure held their monthly board meeting today as well, bringing their data right up to date through yesterday:
MNsure, the Minnesota ACA exchange which has gone through a lot of political ping-pong but is still standing, just released their first official 2016 #OE3 enrollment report:
OK, that's 6,864 QHP selections in 17 days, or 404 per day so far.
Minnesota only accounted for 0.5% of total QHP selections for 2015; extrapolated nationally at the same ratio, this would suggest around 1.37 million QHPs nationally through yesterday...which is a little lower than I'm currently estimating, but in the right ballpark.
OK, this isn't an official exchange update, and it only covers the "first hour after opening" on Sunday, but aside from Maryland, this is the only hard number I have so far; from Sunday's Wall St. Journal:
The federal exchange, HealthCare.gov, opened for business Sunday and will serve 38 states that rely on the marketplace. California’s state-run exchange is launching a 38-stop bus tour to get the word out about signing up and re-enrolling for coverage. Minnesota’s exchange had a couple hundred people sign up in the first hour after opening in the morning with no signs of any technology problems.
“We’re not expecting a whole lot of enrollment because it’s a 60 degree day on a Sunday, but so far so good,” said Shane Delaney, a spokesman for MNsure. The state exchange has hundreds of brokers and navigators geared up to assist consumers.
OK, that's a bare minimum of 200 QHP selections as of 10am (I'm guessing) on Nov. 1st in Minnesota. Duly noted.
MNsure, the Minnesota ACA exchange (which isn't included in the HC.gov analysis above, of course), just posted their own independent analysis of their 2016 rate offerings, and while the picture is pretty ugly for current enrollees who don't shop around, it's actually pretty damned good for those who do so:
