Last February I was invited to join Will McLeoad & Arliss Bunny on their "I'm Hopping Mad!" podcast to discuss the heated debate over single payer healthcare vs. a more incrementalist approach.
Over this past weekend, Will and Arliss invited me back to discuss the GOP's impending ACA "repeal/replace" intentions, why pretty much all of them would be a disaster and other items. This episode opens with a great explainer/discussion of the "Fake News" debacle; my own segment starts at around 28 minutes in.
I made my original 2017 Open Enrollment Period projections before November 1st, and have only made a couple of modifications to The Graph since then...mainly to account for the fact that the 1st fell on a Tuesday this year instead of a Sunday. None of this changed my final projection of around 13.8 million QHP selections nationally by the end of OE4 on January 31, 2017.
In fact, the only time I seriously considered changing my final projection was November 9th, when I briefly speculated that Donald Trump's election could cause a disastrous drop-off in enrollments, flatlining at perhaps 1.5 million total. This particular concern was, fortunately, unfounded, as it turned out that not only did enrollments end up pacing my projections almost pefectly, they were actually running slightly ahead of my expectations overall.
CEO Blog: Record Setting Day for Connect for Health Colorado®
We did it! We met the very important December 15 deadline with positive energy and in my opinion, we knocked it out of the park! We’ve seen some very impressive numbers with 10,000 plan selections on Wednesday. And on Thursday we processed more than 12,000 plan selections! Thank you for your tireless efforts supporting our customers.
With the volume that we are seeing, we want to reiterate that we are committed to assisting customers with January 1 coverage who began the process by midnight December 15. If customers are delayed, they should call our Customer Service Center for assistance before finalizing their enrollment. Our established process for requesting an alternative start date can be used to facilitate this.
On Wednesday, CMS's Week 5/6 Snapshot report confirmed 4,015,709 QHP selections via the federal exchange (HC.gov), but also noted that "over 700,000" additional ACA enrollments came in on Monday and Tuesday. About an hour ago, President Obama confirmed a 1-day record-breaking 670,000 people signed up yesterday alone. A press release from the HHS Dept. was also just released stating:
On Monday, over 325,000 Americans selected plans on HealthCare.gov. On Tuesday, over 380,000 Americans selected plans on HealthCare.gov. This marked two of the biggest days in HealthCare.gov history.
Unfortunately, there's no hard numbers for Sunday or Wednesday, but I have a pretty good idea where they fell:
So, how about my projections? Well, for today specifically (12/15), I've been assuming roughly 700,000 QHP selections nationally (540K via HC.gov plus 160K via the dozen state exchanges), bringing the cumulative total up to 7.70 million nationally.
HC.gov's one-day enrollment record was set exactly a year ago today (12/15/15), when they enrolled 600,000 people in a single 24-hour period. I've been assuming that fewer people would enroll today specifically this year, if only because so many current enrollees have been actively renewing earlier than in the past; I figured this would've taken some of the heat off of the final day, so I knocked 10% off of the top.
Instead, it looks like I may have underestimated today's haul. The federal exchange could conceivably hit 700K today, and the national tally could potentially hit 800K or so. Then again, if they announce a deadline extension, some of that might spill over into the weekend.
Covered California Enrollment Continues to Surge for January Coverage
Deadline Extended to Dec. 19 to Align With Federal Marketplace
Consumers now have through midnight on Monday, Dec. 19 to sign up and have their coverage begin starting Jan. 1.
More than 67,000 new consumers selected a plan during the past four days.
SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Covered California is extending a key enrollment deadline for coverage starting Jan. 1 in order to align with a new federal announcement made yesterday that extends the deadline for HealthCare.gov states.
Consumers enrolling through Covered California will now have through Monday, Dec. 19 at midnight to sign up for health care coverage that will begin on Jan. 1.
Covered California hopes that by aligning the deadline with HealthCare.gov it will reduce any confusion that consumers may experience after hearing yesterday’s federal announcement, and give consumers the time they need to sign up for coverage.
Just to clarify, I fully realize that Disney/LucasFilm would've had to agree to such an official ad campaign.
I'm assuming that it's OK for me to do this under parody/fair use.
Images will be removed if requested. Please don't sue.
3/22/17: Now that the GOP is apparently going to try and cram through killing off Essential Health Benefits and so forth in the #Trumpcare bill after all, it seems like a good time to repost this.
For years now, the Holy Grail of healthcare policy for progressives has been Universal Coverage (UC): Every single person receiving guaranteed, comprehensive, quality, affordable healthcare coverage. For most progressives, the means for paying for universal coverage is envisioned as a Single Payer (SP) system...which simply means that people pay taxes to the federal government, which in turn pays the medical bills to doctors, hospitals and other healthcare providers (note that neither UC nor SP have anything to do with Socialized Medicine (SM), in which all of the doctors/hospitals work for & are controlled directly by the government).
From Kevin Counihan, CEO of the Health Insurance Marketplace:
“Millions of Americans have already signed up for coverage and tens of thousands more are in the process of getting coverage today. As we did last year, because of extraordinary volume of consumers contacting our call center or visiting HealthCare.gov, we are extending the deadline to sign-up for January 1 coverage until 11:59pm PST December 19. Nearly a million consumers have left their contact information to hold their place in line. Our goal is to provide affordable coverage to everyone seeking it before the deadline, and these two additional business days will give consumers an opportunity to come back and complete their enrollment for January 1 coverage.”
UPDATE: OK, I've confirmed that this is in fact a full 4-day deadline extension, so anyone can still sign up by Monday at midnight.
