Rhode Island: 11.3K Off-Exchange Enrollments

Hat Tip To: 
Ted Nesi

A lot of good info here, mostly about off-exchange enrollments, but also about the "Paid/Unpaid" question:

That total breaks down as 27,968 individuals who used HealthSource RI to sign up for plans from Blue Cross or Neighborhood Health Plan of Rhode Island, along with 11,271 who bypassed HealthSource and boughtObamacare-compliant policies directly from Blue Cross, the two organizations told WPRI.com.

Those 11,271 direct-purchasers are important to Blue Cross because they will be combined with those who bought through HealthSource RI to make up the insurer’s 2014 risk pool for individual insurance. The size and shape of the risk pool is crucial to determining how much premiums will cost.

...Roughly four in five of those who bought insurance through HealthSource by March 8 had paid their first premiums at that point.

Until this year Blue Cross was the only Rhode Island health insurer that sold policies directly to individuals, having 17,000 members in the individual market as of last October. Neighborhood joined the individual market this year, but is only selling policies to those who make up to 250% of the federal poverty level, giving Blue Cross a continued monopoly on individual health insurance at higher income levels.

Almost 97% of those who used HealthSource RI to purchase coverage chose a Blue Cross plan, with only 651 choosing a Neighborhood plan, through March 8.

OK, since BC of RI essentially owns the market, that means that the total off-exchange enrollments for Rhode Island to date are 11,271.

As for the payment rate, that's 80% of the combined January, February, March and half of April-start policies.

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