Maryland officials say about 9,000 people have browsed for health insurance plans so far on the state's newly designed health care exchange website.
Carolyn Quattrocki, the exchange director, said Monday the website is working smoothly, and officials are pleased with the number of people who have started shopping. It opened on Saturday, ahead of Sunday's scheduled opening.
An architect of ObamaCare on Tuesday said he regretted his 2013 comment that a "lack of transparency" and the "stupidity of the American voter" helped Congress pass the healthcare law.
Massachusetts Institute of Technology Professor Jonathan Gruber made his first public comments on MSNBC after conservative media unearthed a video clip over the weekend of him discussing the healthcare law.
Those entering the marketplace to downgrade, upgrade or buy insurance for the first time will have to give it a little more thought. In addition to the expected complications of switching health insurance, the Department of Health and Human Services reports that consumers will have 25 percent more options this year.
But that’s not the only thing that's changed. Consumers, doctors and insurance agents have all learned a lot over the past year. If you’re getting into the health insurance marketplace for the first time, here’s what’s important to know.
While we have made every effort to provide accurate information in these FAQs, people should contact the Marketplace or Medicaid agency in their state for guidance on their specific circumstances.
Smedsrud is chief executive of HealthCare.com, which holds a seemingly invaluable piece of Internet real estate these days. And he’s looking to make the most of it.
...If that sounds a lot like the government’s official portal for purchasing health care, that’s pretty much the idea. And it doesn’t look that different from HealthCare.gov. Stock photography of smiling people? Check. The promise to help someone find the right insurance plan for them? Yes.
Of course, as it turns out, the actual QHP enrollment as of mid-October turned out to be around 7.1 million anyway, making some of my points moot, but they're food for thought since 7.1M is still less than 7.3M (which in turn, of course, is less than the 8.0M from April).
Last week, I posted a major entry in which I painstakingly pieced together the current QHP enrollment data from 16 states in an attempt to extrapolate what the current national enrollment figure stood at as of October. Since last spring, the only data point that HHS had given out was that 7.3 million were enrolled as of August 15th; I was trying to calculate how many were still enrolled 2 months later, after adding "special life event" enrollments and subtracting people who dropped their policies for other assorted reasons.
In addition, there was the question how much the "3 month grace period", "citizenship/immigration data" and the "income data discrepancy" issues would contribute to the attrition rate, as people were dropped due to failure to continue payments or for not being legally eligible for the policies.
Yup, that's another 16,000 Michiganders who are royally hosed if the Republican Party gets their way and repeals the ACA. The total is now up to around 662,000 people state-wide if you combine Medicaid expansion and those receiving QHP tax credits:
Healthy Michigan Plan Enrollment Statistics
Beneficiaries with Healthy Michigan Plan Coverage: 449,949
(Includes beneficiaries enrolled in health plans and beneficiaries not required to enroll in a health plan.)
As you can see, there are only cosmetic changes at this point. A week or so ago, I had estimated that the number of current QHP enrollees had likely dropped from 7.3 million as of 8/15/14 down to somewhere between 6.8 - 7.0 million. However, according to the HHS press release, the actual number "as of October" stood at 7.1 million. I don't know if that means the beginning, middle or end of October, but let's assume it's somewhere in the middle, or October 15th. [Update: HHS confirmed that this number does indeed run through 10/15].
GOOD NEWS: A week or so ago I calculated that the current number of QHP enrollees, which was stated as being 7.3 million as of mid-August, might have dipped down to somewhere between 6.8 - 7.0 million people. I'm happy to report that according to HHS, that number was still 7.1 million as of October. This means that there was a bit of a drop, but not nearly as significant one as the limited state-level data was indicating (especially Florida...still not sure what's going on there).
While the CBO was still projecting a total of 13 million people enrolling (or re-enrolling) through the ACA exchanges by the end of 2015, the HHS Dept. is issuing a much more cautious range of 9.0 - 9.9 million. They're basically saying that the CBO's 13M was based on the assumption that it would take about 3 years to ramp up to the eventual 25M total, but they now feel it will take either 4 or 5 years to ramp up, meaning 2015 should see either 11.5M (assuming 4 year ramp-up) or 9M (assuming 5 year ramp-up).
Whether you see this new projection as good or bad news really depends on your POV. On the one hand, if it does prove to be accurate, they'll catch a lot of flack for "walking back lofty earlier projection", bla bla bla, and the GOP will use this as yet another opportunity to attack the ACA as "failing" etc (ignoring the 9-10 million people who will be on the exchanges, the millions more on Medicaid thanks to the ACA, the protections in place for everyone else, and so on and so forth).
On the other hand, if the 2015 enrollment does end up meeting or beating the CBO's original projection of around 13 million (or even coming close), the administration will be able to crow from the rooftops about kicking butt even more than they did this year (when the final number ended up beating the original 7M figure even after all the start-up technical problems and even after subtracting out those who didn't pay their premiums).
