This is an incredibly depressing post for me to write. Last month I received word that CoOportunity Health, one of the 23 co-ops set up as part of the ACA to offer competition with the Big Boys, had run into serious financial trouble and was being yanked off of Healthcare.Gov (they were operating in Iowa and Nebraska, both of which are on the federal exchange).
Anyway, as of December 10th, my contact at CoOportunity was unaware of any issues; they reported that everything was going great. On Christmas Eve, I was tipped off about CMS dropping CoOportunity from the exchange completely, but there wasn't a whole lot of detail given as to what had gone wrong beyond vague references to quarterly financial statements, cash flow and annual audits.
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
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.
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.
Back in January, I found my first solid data on off-exchange enrollments via a Co-Op operating in Iowa and Nebraska called CoOportunity. 
