Official March/April HHS Report Notes of Interest

Keep checking this entry starting at around 2:15pm (eastern, I think?) for March/April HHS report highlights.

(this assumes, of course, that I'm not wrong and they actually do release the report this afternoon...if I'm wrong, oops...)

• Sec. Sebelius
• Julie Bataille (Commuications Director of CMS)
• A bunch of other officials
• Sebelius: 5.4M Fed, 2.6M via state exchanges
• More than 8M total, can't be denied coverage for gender/pre-existing, etc
• in addition to 3M+ sub36ers
• 4.8M ADDITIONAL Medicaid/CHIP as of end of March
• Hoping non-expansion states will expand
• Huge outreach/enrollment effort
• State/Local in-person assistance via a whole mess of organizations (NAACP, Planned Parenthood, Hispanic Access Foundation, etc etc)
• navigators/assistors/state & local Media, social media, Spanish language media, etc.
• Race/Ethnicity 10.7 Latino 16.7 African American 8% Asian Pacific Islanders
• Julie Bataille
• QHPs Doubled in over a dozen states since end of Feb (Texas, Georgia, etc.)
• 70K+ enrollment activities (going over ethnic outreach events, etc)
• 28K in-person assistors

• 8,019,763 people selected Marketplace plans from October 1, 2013, through March 31, 2014, (including additional Special Enrollment Period activity through April 19th). (OK, so 8.02M thru 4/19)

• Here's a direct link to the actual report (PDF)

• Q&A

• CNN: GOP 67% Paid report: When will HHS have official numbers, is 80-90% accurate? A: Won't have that until later this year

• LA TIMES (Noam Levy): state by state variances, premium pressures for lower enrollment states? A: Risk pool should be stable across pretty much every state.

• Richmond Times Dispatch: Medicaid/CHIP enrollments: Determinations or actual enrollments? A: Determinations, but via marketplaces only (doesn't include trad. enrollments from CMS) as an example: VA: 36K more actually enrolled now than baseline (woodworkers)

• Wash Post (sonia): Demographic breakdown (Latino a bit lower than expected): 400K Latinos, 600K African Americans, more work to do but did pretty well overall, only covers HC.gov (state-based not included)

• 2.2 million (28 percent) of the people who selected a Marketplace plan during the initial open enrollment period were young adults between the ages of 18 and 34. A total of 2.7 million (34 percent) were between the ages of 0 and 34 (including additional SEP activity reported through Saturday, April 19th). 

• Lehigh Valley Morning Call: Ins. Companies warning re. paid; any info from companies re. health status of enrollees? A: No health status collected by design.

• AP (Carla Johnson): How many of enrollees previously insured/uninsured? A: All over the place, hard to say so far.

• HuffPo (Jeffrey Young): Re. Medicaid numbers, will there be a better breakdown between strict expansion/woodworkers/etc? A: Yes, when states come to Fed for matching payments to identify enrollees as expansion or woodworkers, etc.

• Cleveland Plain Dealer: Out of 8M of 13.5M potential pool, are other 5.5M paying the fine, buying off-exchange, etc? A: CBO estimates about 5M off-exchange

• CNBC: Plan by plan breakdown (Metal Level? etc) A: Will have to get back to you...

• Tami Luhby CNN Money: Latino/minorities what else will be done next time around? A: (various efforts...didn't catch most of it)

• Palm Beach Post: Florida? 

• BY THE WAY: Texas exchange QHP total: 733,757

• Follow-up re. "missing" 5.5M in pool who didn't actually enroll (HHS guy confused about which number they're asking about)

• McClatchy Newspapers: 12 states doubled enrollments: FL, TX, GA, others?

• Milwaukee: Question re. 3M young adult number? THis has changed but they're pretty sure it's at least 3M, probably more now?

• CMS REPORT SHOULD BE RELEASED TODAY AS WELL???

• NPR: Spending for state exchanges vs. HC.gov (cost comparison?) A: too many variables

• Final Question: Surprised by 54/46 F/M gender split? A: ??? (missed it)