Massachusetts: UHC, Guardian, MetLife leaving, 94% retention rate, 3.6% uninsured & more...

I just posted some key specs from the MA Health Connector's monthly enrollment report, but they also posted a bunch of other interesting stuff from their board meeting as well. In no particular order...

• I already knew that Massachusetts was among the 30-odd states that UnitedHealthcare was dropping out of. However, it turns out that United is currently covering fewer than 500 of MA's exchange enrollees (considering that MA's entire individual market was only 72,000 people 2 years ago, and exchange enrollment alone is currently 224,000, I'd imagine that there aren't too many off-exchange United enrollees on top of those 500).
• In addition, Guardian and MetLife are dropping off of MA's dental policy exchange, although according to their monthly report, neither one has any market share via the exchange this year anyway (Altus and Delta seem to make up 100% of the total). (correction: I was looking at the individual dental exchange; Guardian/MetLife are on the small group exchange this year)
• The MA exchange reports an impressive 94% enrollment retention rate year over year:

• In a slideshow presentation about their upcoming marketing/targeting strategy for 2017, they note that there are appx. 240,000 uninsured residents in the state at this time. Since Massachusetts' total population is around 6.75 million, that means that they're down to roughly a 3.6% uninsured rate.
• They also noted that those 240K are split roughly 50/50 between "truly" uninsured and "short term gap" uninsured (ie, spotty coverage):

• The MA exchange launched a pilot program for "walk-in" enrollment centers (which other states such as Kentucky and Rhode Island have used successfully in the past), which was promising enough for them to keep it going:

• Finally, the MA exchange appears to be involved in an ongoing student healthcare coverage program called SHIP (Student Health Insurance Programs), not to be confused with CHIP (the Children's Health Insurance Program), which has been in place for decades. However, in a slideshow report, they note that enrollment in this program has declined significantly over the past few years as students are shifting over to either the ACA's Medicaid Expansion program (aka MassHealth) or exchange QHPs:

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There's a whole mess of other data-nuggety goodness to be found here.