About 2.3 million Pennsylvanians are currently enrolled in Medicaid, Gillis said, and as of Dec. 22, about 88,000 households had applied for Healthy PA, with approximately 30,000 additional applications sent to the state from healthcare.gov. The number of applications from each county is not yet available, Gillis said.
The department is still processing applications but, she said, most of the new sign-ups are going into the Private Coverage Option, which is for people who are newly eligible because Healthy Pa.’s income limits — 133 percent of the federal poverty level, with a 5-percent income disregard — will be broader than Medicaid’s are.
PA has around 600K residents eligible for the expansion program, so that's about 20% who have already signed up so far.
As the article notes, just because someone applies for Medicaid doesn't mean that they'll be approved (or some in the household might while others aren't). Still, assuming that, say, 95% are approved and enrolled, and assuming 1.8x people per household on average (the Census Bureau says it's more like 2.5x), that should still be a good 125K Pennsylvania residents added to the tally in the first 2 weeks...or over 20% of the total eligible in the state:
Two weeks after enrollment began, the state has received tens of thousands of applications for health care coverage by way of the “Healthy PA” program, which offers subsidized, Medicaid-like insurance through private carriers to low-income Pennsylvanians.
As of the end of the day Wednesday, the state had received applications from nearly 44,000 households, according to the Department of Human Services. It also has received an additional 30,000 household applications referrals through the federal health care marketplace.
That doesn’t necessarily mean all those applicants will be eligible to receive coverage, though likely many of them will be, said Kait Gillis, a DHS spokeswoman.
I don't know exactly how many individual people a "household" represents, but I've typically used a 1.8x multiplier to be very cautious (the Census Bureau uses 2.63x).
That suggests the actual number of PA expansion enrollees is more like 49,000 people in just the first week, which would be a fantastic start.
The Corbett administration reached an agreement with the federal government this year to launch the Healthy PA program in lieu expanding Medicaid. Open enrollment in the program has started and coverage will take effect Jan. 1. However Governor-elect Tom Wolf says he will scrap Healthy PA and opt in to Medicaid expansion.
The impending switch apparently has confused many low-income Pennsylvanians, and some are sitting on the sidelines rather than signing up for coverage.
“The most important things is for people to enroll and to get their names on the list,” said State Rep. Vincent Hughes (D- Philadelphia). “If they are not on the list then they won’t get the coverage."
Despite the confusion, more than 27,000 households applied for coverage in the first week of enrollment, which began Dec. 1.
Pennsylvania is about to suffer from whiplash with their version of Medicaid expansion; outgoing GOP Governor Tom Corbett set it up as an Arkansas-style "private option" program, but incoming Democratic Governor Tom Wolf plans on switching everything back over to "standard" Medicaid expansion after he takes office, so things could get a bit confusing for awhile.
Gillis said people have reached the call center, but calls were taking longer than expected, with some taking two hours or more.
Meanwhile, she said the online enrollment process is working well. She said the state received 11,500 applications during the first two days of enrollment. There is no enrollment deadline, but people who want coverage on the first day it's available, Jan. 1, must enroll by Dec. 15, Gillis said.
Last night I noted that both Alaska and Wyoming are strongly considering jumping in the ACA Medicaid expansion pool. If both go through, the number of states which have expanded the program would rise to 31 out of 51 (if you include DC). Tennessee is also considering an Arkansas-style "private Medicaid option".
I also mentioned in passing that one of the "existing" expansion states was Pennsylvania. I knew they were also talking about a "private option" program, but I wasn't sure what the status of the program was. I didn't think it was a done deal yet, but the Kaiser Family Foundation has already struck PA off of their "Medicaid Gap" list, so I'm including them in the tally.
Well, this morning, not one but two site supporters have confirmed that not only is PA definitely moving forward with that program, it might actually end up being "full" expansion instead of the "private option" after all...along with some other useful tidbits I didn't know about:
OK, I almost always cite my sources on data points, but in this case I can't. On the other hand, it's not anything eyebrow-raising either; someone in a position to know has confirmed that at least 1,000 people had enrolled in QHPs via at least one insurer in Pennsylvania as of 11/19.
Considering that PA enrolled over 300,000 people last year, and there are 10 companies participating on the exchange in the state anyway, this isn't a particularly shocking data point, so I'll leave it there, but I can at least add it to the spreadsheet for Pennsylvania, anyway.
A provision of the Affordable Care Act precluding health insurers or companies in the “same controlled group of corporations” as a health insurer from holding exchange contracts raises questions about Optum working on Vermont Health Connect.
Concerns regarding Optum were raised at the federal level by Sens. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, and Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, the ranking members of the Finance and Judiciary committees respectively.
Basically just an overview of the new Idaho ACA exchange; ID is the only state moving from HC.gov to their own website for the 2nd year, giving them a unique perspective. Most interesting to me is that they're spinning the "autonomy/states-rights" angle, which was the whole reason for pushing states to set up their own exchanges in the first place:
Sarah Kliff at Vox broke the news a few hours ago, but I just received the official press release from CMS; there seems to be some discrepancy about the total number eligible, but it's fantastic news no matter what:
Pennsylvania has apparently struck a deal with the Obama administration to expand its Medicaid program to more than 300,000 poor residents, Joan Alker at Georgetown University tweets:
Pennsylvania would be the 27th state (not including the District of Columbia) to participate in Obamacare's Medicaid expansion, and Gov. Tom Corbett would be the ninth Republican governor to sign on.
According to the CMS Dept, however, the actual number eligible in Pennsylvania could top 500,000:
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: CMS Media Relations
Pennsylvania’s Medicaid enrollment is up by more than 18,000 people since the Oct. 1 launch of the Affordable Care Act’s online health plan marketplaces.
The state's enrollment bump in the program for low-income families and individuals is small, though it coincides with larger jumps being experienced in other Republican-led states. Supporters of the ACA are crediting the 2010 federal health care overhaul with encouraging more uninsured to examine their health coverage options. Subsequently they discover that they were already eligible for state-funded insurance programs.
It’s called the “woodwork” effect — people who may have been eligible for Medicaid or related children’s programs all along only learned of their eligibility during the six-month push to sign Americans up for health insurance.
First, apparently the ACA is such a "socialist, anti-capitalist" enemy of the free market that the private, for-profit insurance companies are just fleeing for the hills. Oh wait, actually...
Peter Lee, executive director of Covered California, said all 11 current health plans have indicated they plan to return next year. He also said three new plans have submitted letters of intent indicating they may compete on the exchange in 2015.
