Today I've been informed that the renewal number reached 4,415 as of 11/23, plus another 3,588 new applications. It was also specified that an "application" represents a household, not the total number of covered lives for whatever policy is eventually enrolled in.
Assuming an average of 1.8 people per household, and further assuming that roughly 50% of those who apply had also already selected a plan as of the date in question (this has been a consistent rule of thumb based on the Massachusetts data to date), that suggests that those applications represent roughly 6,400 actual people, and roughly 3,200 of them should have already selected their plans. Knocking 100 off in the interest of caution gives roughly 3,100 new enrollments on top of the 4,415 confirmed renewals, or around 7,500 total enrollments as of the 23rd.
Yes, these are renewals, but this is still extremely impressive, especially seeing how the number has doubled since Monday night:
A new open enrollment period began Saturday, and since then the system has taken in more than 600 new applications and processed more than 3,000 renewals of existing policies.
Vermont Health Connect spokesman Sean Sheehan says the system's performance hasn't been flawless, but he described its improvement over last year as like night and day.
I'm not sure whether the 306 "new coverage applications" refer to actual enrollments or not; going by my own post yesterday, I'll assume not until I hear confirmation otherwise:
The exchange processed 32 new coverage applications by 11:30 a.m., officials reported. By the close of business Monday, that number climbed to 306.
“We have not had any problems reported today,” said Lawrence Miller, chief of Health Care Reform, on Sunday.
...The exchange processed 1,515 renewals as of Monday evening. Those are a mix of people who submitted changes early and those being automatically reenrolled in their current plans.
For comparison, last year Vermont only had 38,000 QHP enrollees total.
Update: I've confirmed that, as I suspected, the 306 "new applications" are just that, not necessarily actual enrollments.
OK, the numbers are small, but it's a start--and the fact that both are being released by states which had horrible technical issues last year is quite telling:
Vermont Health Connect processed 50 new applications and 201 renewals by Saturday at 1 p.m. The exchange was working well with some isolated minor issues in the morning that were quickly resolved, he said.
MASSACHUSETTS: 1,704 in first day:
#ACA coverage update: 2,660 enrolled in @MassHealth; 3,307 eligible for @HealthConnector coverage with 1,704 plans selected. Total: 5,967
Unfortunately, I'm not sure whether "processed completed applications" means actual enrollments or just accounts created. Presumably HHS will provide better clarity on this sort of language (and quickly) going forward. Plus, of course, a single policy enrollment could have 2, 3 or more people in a household.
However, I'm happy to report the very first official enrollment update is also already available, and it's out of Vermont, one of the states with a highly-troubled exchange last time around!
The Vermont Health Connect website went down Monday night and will remain offline for several weeks to allow for improvements to the user experience and data security, state officials said Tuesday.
Customers who need to report changes in income or make changes to their coverage or personal information will need to contact the customer service call center.
Gov. Peter Shumlin is “hopeful” that Vermont’s health care exchange website will be online in time for the open enrollment period that begins Nov. 15. But he didn’t sound certain Friday that his team will make the deadline.
“I’ve been discouraged so many times by this website that I’ll believe it when I see it,” Shumlin said on Vermont Edition Friday. “What I’ve been told by my folks who are working really hard on this is that we’ll be ready for open enrollment on Nov. 15.”
A provision of the Affordable Care Act precluding health insurers or companies in the “same controlled group of corporations” as a health insurer from holding exchange contracts raises questions about Optum working on Vermont Health Connect.
Concerns regarding Optum were raised at the federal level by Sens. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, and Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, the ranking members of the Finance and Judiciary committees respectively.
Basically just an overview of the new Idaho ACA exchange; ID is the only state moving from HC.gov to their own website for the 2nd year, giving them a unique perspective. Most interesting to me is that they're spinning the "autonomy/states-rights" angle, which was the whole reason for pushing states to set up their own exchanges in the first place:
When people shop online for health insurance through the Massachusetts Health Connector next month, they will have a radically different experience than the trouble they encountered last year, state officials promised Thursday.
Last year’s website, redesigned to meet the terms of the Affordable Care Act, never worked properly, leaving people unable to buy subsidized health insurance. This year, officials say, the newly rebuilt website will enable users to cruise smoothly from log-in to plan choice.
Thousands of Vermont Health Connect customers who signed up to pay health care premiums online recently received email notices directing them to pay through a website that is offline.
