I've noted several times that while the total enrollments so far have been tracking my pre-election projections almost perfectly, the drop-off in new enrollments suggest potential trouble ahead. That is, the main reason the overall enrollment numbers are at or even ahead of my expectations so far is because more current enrollees are actively renewing their policies earlier, cancelling out the smaller number of new enrollees signing up. Obviously once those current renewals dry up (which will mostly happen this week), the rest of the enrollment period can't count on that any further.
Let's take a look at the new enrollees I've confirmed so far:
In yesterday's state-by-state roundup, I noted that there are 4 states where I didn't have any enrollment data whatsoever yet (ID, NY, VT & WA), plus only very limited numbers out of DC. Today, the Washington HealthPlanFinder scratched one of those off the list by providing the following update:
Since the start of open enrollment on Nov. 1, more than 160,000 individuals and families have already signed up for Qualified Health Plans (QHP) through Washington Healthplanfinder. The updated total reflects an increase of more than 20,000 QHP selections over the same point in the open enrollment period last year. In addition to 2017 QHP selections, more than 22,000 Washingtonians have signed up for Qualified Dental Plans (QDP) that are now offered through Washington Healthplanfinder.
Hmmm...the Colorado exchange hasn't issued an official enrollment update since the end of November, when it stood at 37,142 QHPs.
Today, in an article about the overall national numbers (mainly noting today's Week 5/6 Snapshot report), Kimberly Leonard of U.S. News & World Report cited a number I haven't seen elsewhere; I presume she simply called up the exchange directly. It seems about right to me:
Open enrollment began a week before Election Day, and several states reported that they didn't begin running ads until after that, saying they didn't want to compete with the attention the election was getting and noting that space sold during that time was particularly expensive.
That was the choice for Colorado, where enrollment is 16.3 percent higher than last year, totalling 50,207 people.
In addition, Leonard provides a couple of quick updates/corrections for some other states:
As I noted after the 11/26 data was released, some key notes:
Most states are as of 12/10/16 (officially the end of the 6th week, even though it's "short" 2 days due to November starting on a Tuesday this year)
The red vertical line is where I expected each state to be as of 12/10/16...around 38% of where I project their final projected enrollments to be as of 1/31/17
For purposes of this graph, I'm defining "ahead" or "behind" as being plus or minus 2 percentage points.
South Dakota, Hawaii, Minnesota, Utah, Nebraska, Oregon, Wyoming, Wisconsin, Florida, Kansas, Kentucky, Pennsylvania, Montana and Alabama are significantly ahead of where I expected them to be at this point.
On the other hand, New Hampshire, Michigan, Alaska, Georgia, Indiana, Texas, Arkansas, Colorado, Mississippi and especially Louisiana are all significantly behind so far.
Just a couple of days ago, MNsure reported 41,882 QHP selections as of December 11th (there was some confusion about the date but I've since confirmed this).
Today they've updated that to tack on another 14,000 new QHPs yesterday alone, bringing the grand total up to around 1,353,000 to date:
Covered California Extends Enrollment Deadline as Consumer Interest Continues to Grow
Consumers now have until midnight on Dec. 17 to sign up for health care coverage that will begin on Jan. 1.
More than 25,000 new consumers selected a plan during the past two days, which is more than enrolled at this time last year.
Open-enrollment plan selections continue to surge ahead of last year’s pace.
SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Thanks to a strong increase in demand, Covered California is giving consumers more time to sign up for health coverage that will start on Jan. 1.
...There's a simple reason for this: When I whipped up this year's Graph, I forgot to take into account that November 1st fell on a Tuesday this year instead of a Sunday. Since enrollments tend to drop off substantially on weekends, this means that the slowdown comes 2 days earlier each week. For most weeks this is barely visible on the Graph, but this week in particular it can make a huge difference...up to a couple hundred thousand people per day.
In addition, normally CMS officially adds several million auto-renewals in a big lump sum around December 17-18th. Since those dates also fall over the weekend this year, I'm assuming they'll all be plugged in at once on Monday the 19th, resulting in an even more dramatic vertical line shooting up on that date.
With these tweaks in mind, here's what The Graph now looks like. Again, I haven't changed my key deadline projections, just the day-to-day flow within the current week or so.
I don't write about dental plan coverage very often; the only time I've ever really talked about it at length was my angry rant at the HHS Dept. on November 20, 2014 after it was discovered that someone at HHS/CMS screwed up royally by mistakenly lumping in several hundred thousand standalone dental plan enrollments with the full Qualified Health Plan enrollments, falsely making it look like the effectuated enrollment was around 7.3 million people as of August when in fact the number had fallen below the 7.0 million mark.
Otherwise, I don't really talk about dental plans much. There's actually two ways people can sign up for dental plans via the ACA exchanges: Either as "enhanced" QHPs (ie, full healthcare policies which also bundle dental coverage with them...which all of them really should IMHO, seeing how your teeth and gums are part of your body, after all), or as separate, standalone plans which are optional (that is, you don't have to have dental coverage in order to meet the ACA's Individual Mandate requirement).
