Washington State

Washington State is doing a fantastic job of tracking pretty much every data point about health insurance in the state (I already had the 146K number):

OLYMPIA, Wash. – The individual health insurance market has grown to more than 324,900 people in Washington state, according to updated enrollment information reported by health insurers to the Office of the Insurance Commissioner this week.

This number includes 178,981 enrolled outside the Exchange and 146,000 enrolled inside the Exchange, Washington Healthplanfinder, as of March 31. The total is expected to increase as late enrollments through the Exchange are processed and reconciled.

...Before open enrollment began on Oct. 1, 2013, approximately 278,000 people were enrolled in health plans in Washington state’s individual market. Some 238,000 people received discontinuation notices from their insurers and had to find new coverage by Jan. 1, 2014. Estimates were made earlier this year that 113,000 of those who received notices would qualify for subsidies and 30,000 would qualify for the state’s newly expanded Medicaid program, Apple Health.

Thanks to deaconblues for all three of these items:

Avalere Health, with whom I've both clashed and agreed with on ACA-enabled Medicaid enrollments in the past, is projecting as high as a net gain of 4.3M Medicaid enrollees through the end of March:

700K to 1.3M Additional Medicaid Enrollees through March, If Current Trends Continue.

However, March and April figures could bring more dramatic increases if outreach and enrollment efforts targeting the end of exchange open enrollment translate into new Medicaid enrollees. Specifically, if Medicaid sign-ups follow a similar pattern as exchanges, new Medicaid enrollees could reach 4.3 million by the end of March. In addition, recent figures released by CMS do not account for individuals assessed eligible for Medicaid through HealthCare.gov who have yet to be determined eligible by states.

Washington State gives the official 3/31 total (except for Medicaid, which is still missing a few days):

Enrollments Completed

Qualified Health Plans: 146,497

Medicaid Newly Eligible Adults (through March 27): 268,367

Medicaid Previously Eligible but not Enrolled (through March 27): 135,485

Medicaid Redeterminations (Previously Covered - through March 27): 408,086

Total: 958,435

*Note: These numbers reflect enrollments and applications through March 31.

No final numbers or Medicaid, but it's something for the moment:

According to preliminary numbers, approximately 140,000 people had purchased insurance plans through the state by the end of the weekend, said Michael Marchand spokesman for the Washington Healthplanfinder exchange. That’s a bump of about 9,000 people over four days.

The headline is negative (shocker!), but the data is positive (imagine that!):

The Washington Health Benefit Exchange reported Thursday it had 131,000 private insurance sign-ups through its online portal, wahealthplanfinder.org.

The milestone comes on the eve of a major Obamacare deadline. Individuals not exempted by law due to low incomes must have health insurance by Monday or risk paying tax penalties next year.

The private insurance sign-ups are in addition to the more than 250,000 newly eligible adults who have enrolled in Medicaid since the exchange opened Oct. 1. Thousands more are enrolled in other Medicaid programs for the first time, according to the state Health Care Authority.

If they "reported" the numbers Thursday the 27th, I presume they were through midnight on the 26th at the latest. The previous tally (125,207 QHPs) was through the 23rd, so that's about 5,800 more in 3 days, or 1,933 per day.

This compares with WA's February rate of 654/day (nearly 3x) and their existing March rate of 816/day (over 2.3x).

I can't really use any of these numbers directly in the spreadsheet, but some excellent data to show the impact in Washington (state). Also note the point regarding many people enrolling directly with the insurance companies:

Statewide, about 375,000 people have insurance due to this law. That’s the net gain, counting those who had their policies “canceled” last winter (most simply signed up for a new one with their same company).

The Medicaid program in the state has grown 25 percent since October, from 1.2 million to 1.5 million.

...The private individual insurance market has also grown, by 19 percent, from 272,000 plans last October to 325,000 today. These figures include plans sold on the state exchange and directly by companies.

Whether that’s big enough to be stable and affordable remains to be seen. But before Obamacare it was shrinking.

Plus the state says there are 32,000 young adults on their parents’ policies due to the new law.

A huge turnaround from last week, when it looked like WA was starting to slow down. Exchange QHPs are up from 112,225 as of 3/13 to 125,207 as of 3/23...an increase of 12,982 in 10 days (not quite the "past week" described in the press release, unless it took the first 3 days for 901 of them to go through).

The impact on the projection chart is equally dramatic: Washington State has now gone from running 37% below February's daily average to 25% higher than February did.

On the Medicaid side, new enrollments now stand at 250K "strict expansion" and 130K "woodworkers", up from 235K & 122K respectively, for a total increase of 23,000 new enrollees.

OK, the cutesy title is kind of a misnomer; my two previous entries didn't use that title originally...but they should have, and do now.

March 31st is supposed to be the final day to enroll in QHPs via the exchanges...but it's looking more and more as though that won't quite be the case in not two, not three...but possibly up to seven states now, including a couple whose websites have been working smooth as silk??

On March 7th I pointed out that due to Massachusetts having some 154,000 people stuck in health insurance limbo, they've been granted some sort of temporary extension, twice...out to as far as June 30th in some cases...

An interesting, if somewhat disappointing update from Washington State this evening. Paid QHPs are up 3,204 from 3/06 - 3/13 to 112,225, but this still leaves WA at 63% of their February rate for March so far (granted this is better than the 54% they were at through last week).

More interestingly, the number of unpaid enrollments has dropped from 82,060 down to 71,787...a reduction of 10,273 people.

What this means is that even if all 3,200 of the paid enrollees are "conversions" (enrollees actually paying for their policies), that still leaves over 7,000 people who are apparently being, as deaconblues put it, "purged" from the list. I'm guessing that these are mostly people from last fall or early this winter who let their final payment deadline expire without paying.

After a couple of weeks where the paid QHPs seemed to only be drawing from the existing unpaid enrollments (a sign of new additions drying up), WA seems to be back in gear with 2,740 more paid QHPs, 4,019 more unpaid QHPs and 16,247 new Medicaid/CHIP additions, all since February 27th.

Enrollments Completed:

  • Qualified Health Plans: 109,021
  • Medicaid Newly Eligible Adults: 222,607
  • Medicaid Previously Eligible but not Enrolled: 115,159

In-Process Applications

Qualified Health Plan Applicants – Need to Pay: 82,060

*Note: These numbers reflect enrollments and applications through March 6.

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