Until now, aside from the official monthly HHS reports, Vermont's enrollment data has been frustrating--not that it hasn't been available, it's just been released in confusing dollops (Massachusetts falls into the same category). Today, however, the Vermont Health Connect exchange released a detailed PDF that does a great job of answering the key questions--along with one bit of data I haven't seen for any other state so far: The breakdown not only of total Private QHP enrollments, but how many of these started in January, February and (upcoming) March.
Page 6 has the key data: A total of 16,906 QHP enrollees as of 2/10, of whom 13,514 are paid up. Overall, this points to an 80% paid rate, which is very good--but the monthly breakout is even more interesting: January-start enrollees have a 92% paid rate (which you'd certainly hope for by now, considering that we're into mid-February) and February-start enrollees are at 79% paid. The March-start enrollees (14%) are the ones providing the main drag on the total...but this is hardly shocking since the start date for that coverage is still over 2 weeks away.
The Vermont numbers have been alternately impressive and confusing at the same time. The wording of a prior article from 12/12 made it sound like the 45,000 (at the time) people were split between private enrollments and Medicaid expansion, but also made reference to 29,200 people being enrolled "directly via their employer". At the time, I wasn't sure what to do with that number, so I ignored it. However, the more recent article again references the same 29,200 people; after comparing the 2 articles, it seems pretty clear to me that these would fall under the category of "direct" or "off-exchange" enrollees (although they also might fit under "small business exchange enrollments", which is a category I haven't even added yet). Add this to the 22,800 private exchange enrollments and you have 52K total.
The article is a bit confusing, but it looks like 15,800 belong in the "Private Exchange" category with another 29,200 under the "Small Business (Direct)" category which doesn't even exist on the spreadsheet yet. I'll have to review this further to get a straight answer, but for now I'm entering both numbers under the "Private Exchange" heading.
The delayed deluge of applications — 5,000 were filled out in the past four days — brings the total number of Vermonters who should be settled with their coverage at the start of 2014 to 45,000, the administration says.
That’s roughly two-thirds of the 65,000 Vermonters whose insurance expires at the start of the year. Another 9,300 people have three months worth of breathing room — their plans have been extended through March 31, either because their employers chose that route or because the payment piece of the website isn’t working for them.
Of the 45,000 Vermonters who’ve signed up, 29,200 are people whose employers that decided to bypass the website and sign up directly with an insurance carrier. The remainder signed up either through the Vermont Health Connect portal or by filling out a paper application.
Until now, aside from the official monthly HHS reports, Vermont's enrollment data has been frustrating--not that it hasn't been available, it's just been released in confusing dollops (Massachusetts falls into the same category). Today, however, the Vermont Health Connect exchange released a detailed PDF that does a great job of answering the key questions--along with one bit of data I haven't seen for any other state so far: The breakdown not only of total Private QHP enrollments, but how many of these started in January, February and (upcoming) March.
