Updating Oregon's QHP total does nothing to change the overall tally this year because they're operating on HC.gov now. It is useful to keep a running total on the state, however. In addition, Oregon is the only state (so far) providing hard numbers for off-exchange QHP enrollments.
Members enrolled, Nov. 15-Jan. 4
On Healthcare.gov 81,037
Outside of Healthcare.gov 62,678
Total 143,715
About the data: Enrolled means a person has selected a plan. Consumers must pay the first month's premium for their coverage to become effective. These numbers do not identify whether the first month's premium has been paid. These numbers do not include Oregonians enrolled in the Oregon Health Plan (Medicaid).
Cornyn predicted the King v. Burwell case that will be argued before the Supreme Court in March will end up going a long way towards undoing the law.
The court will decide whether the law allows people participating in the federally run health care exchange to get subsidies. A decision denying the subsidies would significantly undermine the law.
“What I expect is that the Supreme Court is going to render a body blow to Obamacare from which I don’t think it will ever recover,” Cornyn said.
The 980K confirmed by the 14 assorted state-run exchanges,
The unreported renewals (both active and automatic) from California & New York, and
Another roughly 150,000 scattered amongst all 50 states & DC since the date of their most recent updates until today (which varies from as little as 1 day to as much as 25 days in the case of Idaho).
If you do the math, you'll see that the biggest missing piece here is the 3rd item above: Covered California and New York State of Health have, to date, still refused to give out any re-enrollment/renewal data for 2014 QHP enrollees. Not just autorenewal numbers, but active renewals as well.
At long last (well, by my standards anyway), the Washington State exchange has released updated enrollment numbers, and the results are...well, kind of all over the place.
First up, of course, is the private QHP enrollment figure:
OLYMPIA, Wash. – Washington Healthplanfinder today announced that more than 107,000 residents have signed up or renewed their Qualified Health Plan through wahealthplanfinder.org for coverage that started on Jan. 1. Approximately 26 percent of current Qualified Health Plan enrollees have signed up through Washington Healthplanfinder for the first time.
In addition, 471,602 new adults have accessed coverage through Washington Apple Health (Medicaid). The total number of residents who are currently enrolled under Medicaid expansion and in Qualified Health Plans totals nearly 580,000.
...Currently, 60 percent of customers who were enrolled in 2014 coverage have taken action to renew their coverage for 2015. Any remaining customers must return to their online account or contact the toll-free Customer Support Center to reconfirm their eligibility for financial help, select a health plan and submit their payment.
That's another 2,489 QHP determinations. Again, assume 50% of them followed through and selected a plan and that's at least 1,200 more added, bringing the likely total up to around 87,600 QHP selections to date, plus 160,824 confirmed Medicaid enrollees.
Last week I noted that if the Supreme Court rules in favor of the plaintiffs in the King v. Burwell case (challenging the IRS tax credits given to over 85% of enrollees via the Federal exchange, Healthcare.Gov), around 7 million people would have their tax credits yanked away.
Of these, I figured that perhaps 5-6 million are receiving substantial credits--that is, a family making $90,000/year would be among those 7M, but they'd only be getting perhaps $5 - $10/month in credits, so losing a couple hundred dollars a year would be annoying, but not devastating.
However, I also noted that in addition to the 5-6M who would be directly impacted, there would also likely be a major ripple/domino effect which would seriously impact others in those states as well, even those who aren't receiving the credits themselves:
Statements by Secretary Lew and Secretary Burwell on preparing for the upcoming tax season
In preparation for the 2015 tax filing season, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the Treasury Department are putting in place resources to provide tax filers with the information and resources they need to get their questions answered.
Millions of Americans who get their health insurance through work are benefitting from the Affordable Care Act, and millions of others have signed up for the Health Insurance Marketplaces and received financial assistance to lower their monthly premiums.
Starting this year, consumers will see some changes to their tax returns. While the vast majority of tax filers – over three quarters – will just need to check a box on their tax return indicating they had health coverage in 2014, people who have coverage through the Marketplaces, or decided not to enroll in coverage, should be aware of some additional steps that will be a part of the tax filing process starting this year.
A few days ago, Rhode Island issued their latest numbers through 12/27. However, like Vermont, Minnesota and Hawaii, they bumped their January-start deadline out to New Year's Eve, making it tricky to get a bead on their "post deadline" enrollment pattern, which is where things are for every state now.
PROVIDENCE – HealthSource RI (HSRI) has released enrollment data, certain demographic data and certain volume metrics through Saturday, January 3, 2015, for Open Enrollment.
Individual Enrollment data (November 7, 2014 through January 3, 2015) As of January 3, 2015, 78% of Year One customers have renewed (selected a plan) for 2015 (59% of renewing customers paid their first month’s premium).
Total New Customers: 6,067
Total Renewed Customers: 20,313
Total HealthSource RI enrollments for 2015 coverage (including those who have not yet paid): 26,380
As always, this is just an estimate; it could be slightly higher or lower. However, my best estimate is that 2015 private QHP selections via the various ACA exchanges (HC.gov plus the 14 state-based versions) will cross the 9 million milestone sometime today if it hasn't already done so.
In addition to the 6.59 million enrollees via the federal exchange which were just confirmed within the past hour or so, today has also seen updates from Minnesota, Kentucky and Massachusetts. Plug all of those into the Spreadsheet and the confirmed, official total has now reached 7.56 million nationally.
Tack on an estimated 960K renewals (active & automatic) from California, around 330K from New York, along with another 150K or so from the past week or two across various states (remember, some state exchanges such as Idaho haven't updated their numbers for as long as 24 days), and I'm quite confident that the 9 million mark has been reached. As always, see The Graph (also posted below) for a visual representation of where things stand and where they should be headed.
