He was an incredibly kind and generous man who was a wonderful partner for my mother for over 23 years after my dad died, and I'll miss him terribly, but he lived a full and varied life to a ripe old age, and passed peacefully in his sleep in his own home, near loving family members. You can't ask for a better way to bow out.
When he became legally blind in his later years, Oscar was partnered up with a Leader Dog for the Blind named Mello, a beautiful golden retriever, who he grew to love more than anything on this earth.
Needless to say, this is going to be a busy week for me, so I'll probably be posting less frequently than usual for a few days.
If anyone would like to help honor Oscar's memory, I'd like to suggest a contribution to either of the following organizations:
Things were looking pretty dicey for two of Montana's three insurance carriers participating on the individual market the past few days. One of the three, Blue Cross Blue Shield, saw the writing on the wall regarding Cost Sharing Reductions (CSR) likely being cut off and filed a hefty 23% rate hike request with the state insurance department. The other two, however (PacificSource and the Montana Health Co-Op, one of a handful of ACA-created cooperatives stll around), assumed that the CSR payments would still be around next year and only filed single-digit rate increases.
I'm not going to speculate as to the reasons why they both did so when it was patently obvious that having the CSRs cut off was a distinct possibility, although I seem to recall the CEO of the Montana Co-Op said something about their hands being tied since CSR reimbursement payments are legally required, after all. Basically, it sounds like he was genuinely trying to avoid passing on any more additional costs to their enrollees than they had to.
HealthSherpa is a California-based technology company focused on connecting individuals with health coverage. The site was initially developed as an alternative to research plans from Healthcare.gov, and now provides individual health, dental and vision benefits to both part-time employees and retirees. As of February 2017, over 800,000 people have been enrolled in individual health coverage through HealthSherpa.
First, I want to clarify that I'm not shilling for HealthSherpa here. They aren't paying me for this post. I have no idea whether their customer service is awesome or sucks or anything like that.
Having said that, they are a pretty good resource for getting a feel for what the big picture situation is regarding open enrollment trends each year, and they have provided me with some internal data which they've OK'd me to share publicly.
It's important to note that all of the data here refers to exchange-based enrollments only. They reiterated to me that their individual market enrollments are on-exchange only:
With the 2018 Open Enrollment Period coming up just 5 days from now, it's time to put this to bed: After 6 months of painstaking research and analysis, I've compiled a comprehensive analysis of the weighted average rate changes for unsubsidized ACA-compliant individual market policies in 2018, including both the on- and off-exchange markets. It's already been confirmed by a different analysis by healthcare consulting firm Avalere Health, which used a completely different methodology to arrive at the exact same conclusion: The national average increase is between 29-30%, ranging from as low as a 22% average premium drop in Alaska (thanks to their successful reinsurance program) to as high as a painful 58% increase in Virginia.
However, what you're looking at is, in fact, a visual breakout of the state-by-state proportions of total Qualified Health Plan selections on the ACA exchange throughout the 2017 Open Enrollment Period, which ran from Nov. 1, 2016 - Jan. 31, 2017. The data comes from the official Public Use Files from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid. As you can see, most states follow a fairly obvious trend because 39 of them are run through the federal exchange at HealthCare.Gov.
Since all 39 are administered, entered into the system and reported the same way, the only variances between them are their relative population size: Large states are thicker, small states are thinner throughout the entire enrollment period as you'd expect.
UPDATE: To clarify, just like with Covered California's "6,000 on day one" notice, Washington State's 4,550 new enrollees in 8 days don't include renewals/re-enrollments of current enrollees. Last year WA had 10,265 QHP selections total in the first 5 days and 21,665 in the first 12, so assuming a similar number of renewals each year, their total 8-day tally this year is likely around 13,000 + 4,550 = 17,500)
Every year, I painstakingly patch together Open Enrollment Period data from both the weekly (or bi-weekly, last year) snapshot reports for HealthCare.Gov as well as the dozen or so state-based exchanges to compile The Graph. Usually it's kind of bumpy and scattershot because the numbers for some of the state exchanges are released at (and through) seemingly random times. This means that the curve of the graph is usually a bit bumpy and skewed as I try my best to catch up.
Then, at some point the following year, CMS always compiles the data and posts it to a Public Use File (PUF) in a much more comprehensive, organized fashion. I knew this, and have used the PUF for prior years many times to analyze different demographics (income, age, metal level, financial aid, etc).
HOWEVER, what I didn't realize until tonight is that the same PUF also breaks out the enrollments by week in a nice, even fashion. This allowed me to more accurately recompile the enrollment graphs for both 2016 and 2017 at both the federal (HC.gov) and national (HC.gov + SBMs) level.
Weekly Enrollment Snapshot: Week One: Week 1, Nov 1-4, 2017
In week one of Open Enrollment for 2018, 601,462 people selected plans using the HealthCare.gov platform. As in past years, enrollment weeks are measured Sunday through Saturday. Consequently, week one was only four days long this year - from Wednesday to Saturday.
Every week during Open Enrollment, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) will release enrollment snapshots for the HealthCare.gov platform, which is used by the Federally-facilitated Exchanges, the State Partnership Exchanges, and some State-based Exchanges. These snapshots provide point-in-time estimates of weekly plan selections, call center activity, and visits to HealthCare.gov or CuidadoDeSalud.gov.
The Results of CBO and JCT’s Analysis CBO and JCT estimate that repealing that mandate starting in 2019—and making no other changes to current law—would have the following effects:
ALBANY, NY (November 8, 2017) – NY State of Health, the state’s official health plan Marketplace, today announced a new partnership with ride sharing companies Lyft and Uber. Through the partnership, Lyft and Uber will reach more than 200,000 drivers throughout New York State urging them to visit the Marketplace to shop for and enroll in quality, affordable health insurance. NY State of Health will work directly with Lyft and Uber to promote coverage options and enrollment opportunities for drivers through an email campaign, In-App notifications and in-person education on coverage options.
