Normally, states will review (or "redetermine") whether people enrolled in Medicaid or the CHIP program are still eligible to be covered by it on a monthly (or in some cases, quarterly, I believe) basis.
However, the federal Families First Coronavirus Response Act (FFCRA), passed by Congress at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020, included a provision requiring state Medicaid programs to keep people enrolled through the end of the Public Health Emergency (PHE). In return, states received higher federal funding to the tune of billions of dollars.
As a result, there are tens of millions of Medicaid/CHIP enrollees who didn't have their eligibility status redetermined for as long as three years.
This is, of course, extremely important since household income is one of the most critical factors in calculating how much financial assistance enrollees receive (or if they're eligible for Advance Premium Tax Credits (ATPC) at all).
If you've ever wondered why healthcare wonks (myself included) almost never even bring up the ACA's Catastrophic Level plans and why the only time I ever discuss Platinum Plans is in the context of high-CSR enrollees being eligible for "Secret Platinum" plans (labeled as Silver), this table should explain why.
Next up: Age brackets, gender, racial/ethnic groups and urban/rural communities. I'm also throwing in the stand-alone Dental Plan table here for the heck of it since I don't know where else to include it.
I don't have a ton to say about any of these, really. It's always interesting to me to see that 1.7% of ACA exchange enrollees are 65 or older. Not sure why they aren't on Medicare but I'm sure there are logical reasons.
Now it's time to move on to the actual demographic breakout of the 2024 Open Enrollment Period (OEP) Qualified Health Plan (QHP) enrollees.
First up is breaking out new enrollees vs. existing enrollees who either actively re-enroll in an exchange plan for another year or who passively allow themselves to be automatically renewed into their current plan (or to be "mapped" to a similar plan if the current one is no longer available).
The table below has the data for both Qualified Health Plans (QHPs) in all 50 states + DC as well as Basic Health Plan (BHP) enrollment in Minnesota and New York only, compared to the 2023 OEP.
Normally, states will review (or "redetermine") whether people enrolled in Medicaid or the CHIP program are still eligible to be covered by it on a monthly (or in some cases, quarterly, I believe) basis.
However, the federal Families First Coronavirus Response Act (FFCRA), passed by Congress at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020, included a provision requiring state Medicaid programs to keep people enrolled through the end of the Public Health Emergency (PHE). In return, states received higher federal funding to the tune of billions of dollars.
As a result, there are tens of millions of Medicaid/CHIP enrollees who didn't have their eligibility status redetermined for as long as three years.
There's still likely up to perhaps ~25,000 or so Qualified Health Plan (QHP) enrollments to be added to the 2024 Open Enrollment Period (OEP) tally from the states which haven't reported their final, post-1/16 enrollments (in fact, CA & NY technically haven't ended theirs yet, but I decided to throw this together today for the hell of it.
The table below charts the first eleven years of ACA Open Enrollment Periods, broken out by state. I've also included Basic Health Plan (BHP) enrollment in Minnesota & New York, the only states where BHP programs have been implemented to date (Oregon is scheduled to launch theirs this summer, I believe).
