Still no Medicaid update since 8/13, but Oregon's total QHP figure is up another 687 since 9/22, while NET QHPs are down 696, giving an overall attrition rate since the peak in mid-July of around 2.3% per month. Note that the net current enrollment figure is still 14% higher than the last official HHS report tally of 68,308:
September 29, 2014
Update: Private coverage and Oregon Health Plan enrollment through Cover Oregon
Medical enrollments through Cover Oregon: 354,958 Total private medical insurance enrollments through Cover Oregon: 102,596
Oregon Health Plan enrollments through Cover Oregon: 252,362*
*OHP enrollment data is current as of August 13, 2014. An updated number will be posted soon.
Pretty minor Oregon update today, with no Medicaid update and total QHPs up around 800; the main significance is that the net QHP enrollment, having gradually dropped every week since around mid-July, has leveled off at 78,616 for the past 2 weeks:
Medical enrollments through Cover Oregon: 354,291
Total private medical insurance enrollments through Cover Oregon: 101,909
Oregon Health Plan enrollments through Cover Oregon: 252,362*
*OHP enrollment data is current as of August 13, 2014. An updated number will be posted soon.
Dental enrollments
Total private dental insurance enrollments through CoverOregon 1: 20,686
Net enrollments Net private medical: 78,616
Net private dental: 14,195
This means that Oregon's net attrition rate since July 14, which I had down as 2.5% per month, is now down to just 2.1% monthly.
As I've stated many, many times before: In spite of their $300 million disaster of a website failing to enroll a single person, Oregon has still managed to rack up one of the most impressive enrollment tallies in the entire country relative to their population, with a grand total of over 481,000 people added between QHPs, Medicaid and CHIP (in addition to the 353,000 noted at the link, OR added another 128K to Medicaid via their "fast track" program which they don't list here for whatever reasons).
For a state with only 3.9 million people, that's bound to have an impressive impact on the uninsured rate...and sure enough...
I'm about to show you a chart which demonstrates several noteworthy things about QHP enrollment in Oregon (which, in spite of the terrible technical problems their site has had, has managed to enroll a similar ratio of their uninsured residents in private policies (around 34%) via their exchange to Kentucky, which is considered one of the most successful exchanges).
First, here's the latest numbers, as of 4 days ago:
September 10, 2014
Update: Private coverage and Oregon Health Plan enrollment through Cover Oregon
Medical enrollments through Cover Oregon: 353,454 Total private medical insurance enrollments through Cover Oregon: 101,092
Oregon Health Plan enrollments through Cover Oregon: 252,362*
*OHP enrollment data is current as of August 13, 2014. An updated number will be posted soon.
Dental enrollments
Total private dental insurance enrollments through CoverOregon 1: 20,686
Net enrollments Net private medical: 78,616
Net private dental: 14,603
1 Total numbers are the number of enrollments that have occurred through Cover Oregon.
Between my son being sick for the past 4 days (he's better now, thanks!), losing my internet connection for 2 days (it's back up now, thanks!) and just generally being swamped with work, I don't have time to give these stories the attention they deserve, but they're all worth checking out:
Americans living in rural areas will be a key target as states and nonprofit groups strategize how to enroll more people in health law insurance plans this fall.
Though millions of people signed up for private insurance or Medicaid in the first year of the Affordable Care Act, millions of others did not. Many live in rural areas where people “face more barriers,” said Laurie Martin, a RAND Corp. senior policy researcher. Brock Slabach, a senior vice president at the National Rural Health Association, said “the feds are particularly concerned about this.”
EUGENE — One of the last resorts for mentally ill people in Eugene suffering a crisis will be closed this month after a change in state health care policy took one-third of a shelter's money.
Bummer. See? Obamacare is hurting people...wait, what's that??
Lane County public health spokesman Jason Davis says the expansion of the Oregon Health Plan means there are fewer indigent, uninsured mentally ill people who need short-term crisis housing.
With fewer clients forecast to be in indigent programs, the state is reducing contracts with agencies.
Oh. Never mind.
Reminds me of the "joke" that if Barack Obama cured cancer, Republicans would attack him for hurting oncologists.
For awhile there I was concerned that Oregon's uglier-by-the-minute legal/technical headaches had caused them to stop bothering with regular updates; fortunately, they seem to be back on track again, updating both QHP and Medicaid numbers:
September 1, 2014
Update: Private coverage and Oregon Health Plan enrollment through Cover Oregon
Medical enrollments through Cover Oregon: 353,120
Total private medical insurance enrollments through Cover Oregon: 100,758
Oregon Health Plan enrollments through Cover Oregon: 252,362*
*OHP enrollment data is current as of August 13, 2014. An updated number will be posted soon.
Dental enrollments
Total private dental insurance enrollments through CoverOregon: 20,572
Net enrollments Net private medical: 78,683
Net private dental: 14,502
Huh. OK, exactly 1 day after I snarkily speculated that Cover Oregon is unlikely to release an enrollment update anytime soon due to their increasingly-ugly legal (and technical) battles with Oracle Corp., take a guess what just happened this morning...
August 25, 2014
Update: Private coverage and Oregon Health Plan enrollment through Cover Oregon
Medical enrollments through Cover Oregon: 340,621 Total private medical insurance enrollments through Cover Oregon: 100,013
Oregon Health Plan enrollments through Cover Oregon: 240,608*
*OHP enrollment data is current as of August 6, 2014. An updated number will be posted soon.
Dental enrollments
Total private dental insurance enrollments through CoverOregon 1: 20,018
Net enrollments Net private medical: 78,714
Net private dental: 14,299
On the one hand, the total QHP number has jumped an impressive 3,103 over a 19 day period, or 163/day, so good on them.
In spite of their amazingly successful manual workaround process (which has enrolled 465,000 people in either private or Medicaid coverage), Oregon's website debacle continues to fester. Even so, until recently they've ironically been one of the most reliable state exchanges when it comes to publicly posting updated enrollment data. New detailed data has been posted pretty much once a week since the crazy days of March/April on a regular basis.
That all came to a screeching halt just over 3 weeks ago; the last update out of CoverOregon was August 6th. Again, this is still much better than most other states which only publish updates monthly or not at all, but for Oregon it's been worrisome for me, since they're one of only a handful of states giving that info out at all during the off-season.
Yeah, yeah, I know the title is lame, but it's not easy to find alliterative synonyms for "ugly" and "unpleasant" starting with "O"...
Anyway, a few days after Oracle sued Oregon for $23 million in unpaid bills over the CoverOregon exchange debacle, the state has counter-sued the tech company...for a whopping $5.5 BILLION...including "Whoa...heavy, dude!" charges by the state Attorney General such as racketeering:
In the aftermath of what was likely the most spectacular failure among state-run Affordable Care Act health exchange site launches, the state of Oregon has filed a lawsuit against Oracle America Inc. over the total failure of the Cover Oregon exchange. “Oracle’s conduct amounts to a pattern of racketeering activity that has cost the State and Cover Oregon hundreds of millions of dollars,” Oregon Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum wrote in a civil complaint filed August 22. The lawsuit seeks over $5.5 billion in damages from Oracle, plus legal fees.
The complaint comes after Oracle filed its own lawsuit against the state’s health exchange for failure to pay for services rendered in early August. Oracle’s attorneys claimed that Oregon Governor John Kitzhaber had defamed the company in a “smear campaign” while failing to take responsibility for the failure of state management of the project and not paying Oracle for additional work done.
