Other Resources

SHADAC Insurance Marketplace Enrollment Reports

SHADAC has a variety of resources to help analysts conduct research and understand the results; this technical assistance agenda includes:

Facilitate the sharing of information and expertise among states and provide opportunities for state analysts to interact with federal survey research and design experts.
Help policy makers understand the unique characteristics of the uninsured and conceptualize state programs and interventions that will increase access to care.
Provide assistance to states using SHADAC's Coordinated State Coverage Survey (CSCS), a survey tool for estimating health insurance coverage rates at the state level.

Kaiser Family Foundation:

“Since we began in 1991, our goal has been to build an institution that plays a special role as a trusted source of information in a health care world dominated by vested interests. That institution-building process continues today.” – Drew Altman, Ph.D. President and CEO

One of Henry Kaiser’s favorite sayings was “find a need and fill it,” and that’s what the Foundation has tried to do.  While the Foundation was established in 1948, it is in a sense a relatively young organization.  Under the leadership of CEO Drew Altman, Kaiser was completely remade from the ground up beginning in 1991, with the mission, staff expertise, programs, operating foundation legal status and operating style it is known for today.

The KFF has a bounty of additional information on ACA enrollments, including a breakdown of total applications (in addition to enrollments), how many people qualify for tax subsidies (vs. no subsidies) and so on. They also provide a bunch of different ways of sorting & filtering their data. However, their info is also quite a bit out of date because they rely purely on official government reports (which may be seen as a positive or a negative depending on your POV).

TransAmerica Center for Health Studies

The Transamerica Center for Health Studies (TCHS) informs the national health care conversation by bringing clarity to the complex decision-making regarding health coverage and personal health and wellness. TCHS believes that consumers and employers can be empowered in dealing with health care. Through its broad-based analysis and research findings, the Transamerica Center for Health Studies offers consumers and employers a guide to navigate the financial implications of the health care decisions they are facing.

The Transamerica Center for Health Studies (TCHS) is a division of the Transamerica Institute, a nonprofit, private foundation.  TCHS is dedicated to identifying, researching and analyzing the most relevant health care issues facing consumers and employers nationwide.

I don't know much about this organization, but this PDF gives a nice breakdown of the month-to-month increase in ACA enrollments on a state-by-state basis, as well as what percentage of those who have applied have actually been processed (ie, enrolled).

Washington Post WonkBlog:

Sarah Kliff covers health policy for the Washington Post. Sarah joined the Post in August 2011 from Politico, where she authored Politico Pulse, a daily health policy tipsheet. Prior to Politico, Sarah was a staff writer at Newsweek covering national politics. Her writing has appeared in National Geographic, the BBC, Humanities Magazine and St. Louis Magazine. She is the recipient of fellowships from the Kaiser Family Foundation and University of Southern California Annenberg School of Journalism.

The WaPo WonkBlog covers various topics and has several contributors; Sarah Kliff specifically focuses on the latest developments in the ACA. For the record, while I did tweet the link to this site to Ms. Kliff a few times over the past few weeks, I had no knowledge of her recent feature story about ACASignups.net until after it was published. I have no connection to her other than us both having an ongoing interest in the progress (or lack therof) of the ACA healthcare exchanges.

Actuarial Outpost:

The Actuarial Outpost is the largest social networking site specifically made for actuaries. The Outpost itself has three basic subsections: jobs listings, actuarial news, and by far the most important, the discussion forums. These forums are broken into five major sections, subsections, and various number of forums in each subsection. This partitioning allows for the ability to find a specific forum dealing with near any area of actuarial science, as well as having sections exclusive to specific actuarial exams. 

The link goes to a lengthy discussion forum of how the PPACA (Patient Protection & Affordable Care Act...the full name of the law) enrollments are playing out from the perspective of the actuarial community. Most of the posts seem to be by one person who's quite skeptical/negative about the law, but there's some worthy discussion for those interested.

Aaron Strauss: (inactive)

OK, this is just a direct link to another Google Spreadsheet, but I would be remiss if I didn't give a shout-out to Aaron Strauss, the guy who actually inspired me to start this project. He started tracking applications/enrollments in early October; I was impressed with his work but felt that there was so much more which could be done with it, so I started tracking the data myself with additional features. Eventually he seemed to either lose interest (or, more likely, simply no longer had the time to keep updating his spreadsheet), but I still owe him a thank-you for sparking my interest.

Enroll Maven: (inactive?)

"Enroll Maven is an independent watchdog website dedicated to tracking Obamacare Qualified Health Plan (QHP) enrollment in the 50 states and the District of Columbia during the inaugural enrollment period that runs from October 1, 2013 to March 31, 2014.  QHPs are government-approved health insurance plans being offered through the federal health insurance exchange known as healthcare.gov and health insurance exchanges run by 14 states and D.C."

EnrollMaven.com is openly opposed to the Affordable Care Act, but they're quite up front and transparent about this, and so far their methodology and sourcing has been sound. They don't include Medicaid/SCHIP expansion numbers, because their only concern is the number of actual enrollments in private Qualified Health Plans (QHP's), which is fine. I often use them to cross-check my own data.

UPDATE: They haven't updated their own site since January 1st, an eternity in this situation. I've moved them to "inactive" status until further notice.

The Advisory Board Company: (inactive)

For more than three decades, The Advisory Board Company has been helping health care get better. We aren’t just a global research, technology, and consulting firm. We are a performance improvement partner for 165,000+ leaders in 4,100+ organizations across health care and higher education.

Like ACASignups.net, EnrollMaven.com and Aaron Strauss, this organization attempted to do the same thing we are, but stopped posting updates as of November 6th. Included here for completeness' sake.

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