QHPs

Last week I noted that the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) finally released their first 2023 Open Enrollment Period report, which included 3.0 million Qualified Health Plan (QHP) enrollees through 11/19/22 for the 33 states hosted by HealthCare.Gov plus another 387,000 QHP enrollees via the 18 state-based ACA exchanges.

In a footnote, the press release also noted that around 1.07 million New Yorkers have enrolled in NY's ACA-created Basic Health Plan (BHP) program, which is designed specifically for people who earn between 138% of the Federal Poverty Level (FPL) (the cut-off for ACA-expanded Medicaid eligibility) and 200% FPL.

Currently, there's only one other state which has a BHP program established for this population: Minnesota, whose MinnesotaCare program was around pre-ACA but which has been retooled & is now funded by the Affordable Care Act...although two more states, Kentucky and Oregon, are also expected to launch their own BHP program in the next year or so.

No one has been promoting the Silver Switcharoo option (in states which allow it) louder or more emphatically than I have for the past few weeks.

To summarize (again), this is where someone whose household income is too high for them to qualify for ACA tax credits (400% of the Federal Poverty Line) chooses an ACA-compliant off-exchange Silver plan instead, which is either identical or nearly identical to the same on-exchange policy in every way except that the additional CSR load hasn't been tacked onto it.

Here's a perfect example found by Louise Norris...ironically, this is via Priority Health here in Michigan, which (until today) I thought was a "Silver Load" state, not "Silver Switcharoo". I'll have to do some more research to be sure, but it sounds like at least one MI carrier (Priority) is going full Switch:

Shout-out to Dan Goldberg of Politico New York for the heads up:

NY State of Health Enrollment Tops 4 Million
Open Enrollment for Qualified Health Plans to Begin November 1, 2017

ALBANY, N.Y. (October 5, 2017) - NY State of Health, the state's official health plan Marketplace, today announced that more than 4 million people have signed up for health insurance through the Marketplace. Enrollment in the Essential Plan continues to grow, with more than 680,000 enrolled. The Marketplace is ready for its 5th Open Enrollment Period, which begins November 1, 2017 and has been extended to January 31, 2018, beyond the federal deadline of December 15, 2017, to allow New Yorkers sufficient time to enroll.