California originally announced that they'd allow 5 extra days for people who were Waiting In Line as of midnight on 2/15 to complete their enrollment (through 2/20).
You Have Until Feb. 22 to Get Across the Finish Line for Health Coverage
Open enrollment for private health coverage through Covered California in 2015 is now over, but Medi-Cal enrollment is year-round (read more below). If you started the process of enrolling in a Covered California plan by Feb. 15 but did not complete your application, you may complete it by Feb. 22 with the assistance of a certified enroller, and you need to pay your first premium payment on that same day in order for your coverage to take effect March 1, 2015.
Many people have asked me why I kept using 10.4 million QHP selections as the HHS Dept's official 2015 projection instead of the 9.1 million enrollments which most media outlets have been touting.
In the same press conference/press release where the "9.1 million" figure came out, the HHS Dept. elaborated with a range of 9.0 - 9.9 million paid/effectuated enrollees...but also stated, during a follow-up Q&A, that they were expecting 10.3 - 11.2 million QHP selections. In order to narrow this down to a single number to measure against last spring's 8.0 million selections, it's a simple matter of dividing the low and high end of this range:
Low-end range: 9.0 million / 10.3 million = 87%
High-end range: 9.9 million / 11.2 million = 88%
What have I been saying all along? That around 88% of QHP selections end up paying at least the first month's premium. It seems that the HHS Dept. agrees with me on this point.
The server is being hit hard today (I'm being linked to by MSN, Washington Post, USA Today and Time, among others). This, combined with some other issues is causing serious server load issues.
OK, it's very important to note that the ratio of QHP selections to QHP determinations, which was consistently hovering between 45-50% throughout the entire Open Enrollment Period, likely shot up significantly over the final weekend. On the other hand, MA has bumped their deadline out by 8 extra days on account of the massive snowstorms, so perhaps not.
With that in mind, assuming at least a 50% ratio since Friday's official numbers (9,109 additional QHP determinations), that would mean a minimum of 4,600 additional selections, for a grand total of at least 130K to date.
In theory, it could be as high as 233,000 if every single person who has been determined eligible to enroll in a QHP has gone back and finished the process. Somehow I doubt it's that high, but that at least gives an idea of the potential ceiling here (and don't forget, there's still another full week for MA residents to start the process).
Meanwhile, Medicaid (MassHealth) has broken the 250K milestone.
264,000 Marylanders enrolled through Maryland Health Connection for 2015 Qualified Health Plan enrollments top 119,000
Enrollments “in the pipeline” can be completed by Feb. 28
Overview: 264,245 Marylanders enrolled through Maryland Health Connection from Nov. 15, 2014 to Feb. 15, 2015. That includes 119,096 people enrolled in private Qualified Health Plans (QHP) and 145,149 enrolled in Medicaid.
Due to high demand during the final weekend of open enrollment, Maryland Health Benefit Exchange is allowing people who started an application at MarylandHealthConnection.gov or contacted the call center by Feb. 15 to complete the process by Feb. 28. Figures for open enrollment will be revised after Feb . 28 to account for those completed enrollments.
The Republican Chair of the House Ways & Means Committee, Paul Ryan (who was also Mitt "Grandfather of Obamacare" Romney's running mate just 2 1/2 years ago, you might recall), has made it official:
(Bloomberg) -- House Republicans won’t agree to fix Obamacare if the U.S. Supreme Court rules that the law bars health-insurance subsidies for millions of people, said House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Paul Ryan.
Republicans are developing a “contingency plan” to address the states whose residents would lose subsidies while lawmakers work on a full replacement for the Affordable Care Act, Ryan, a Wisconsin Republican, told reporters Friday in Washington.
The enrollment data from Hawaii has been sporatic and a bit squirrelly, with the few numbers being thrown around sometimes including the cumulative plan selections including 2014 enrollees whether they renewed for 2015 or not. When I posted my last Hawaii update, I was suspicious (at 16.1K, it was nearly twice last year's tally), but the article seemed pretty confident about the numbers, so I went with it.
An hour ago I wrote about the WA HealthplanFinder re-launching a special Tax Season enrollment period which effectively just extends the enrollment period out by an extra 2 months. However, the press release wasn't posted openly on their site.
