Only 25 Percent of Eligible, Unsubsidized, Applicants Selected a Policy
After five months of open enrollment, the final ObamaCare numbers are in:
- Of 13.5 million eligible enrollees, 8 million (59 percent) “selected” policies on ObamaCare exchanges;
- Of 4.8 million eligible enrollees who will not get subsidies, 1.2 million (25 percent) “selected” policies; and
- Of 8.7 million eligible enrollees who will get subsidies, 6.8 million (77 percent) “selected” policies.
Although the report gives excruciating details of age, gender, and ethnic identities of the applicants, the Administration still declines to report how many of those who “selected” policies have paid premiums, claiming that only insurers themselves have this information.
I can imagine that a lot of people who did not receive subsidies experienced some “sticker shock” upon seeing the options available to them.
How so?
Which is likely why only 25% of them opted to sign up for coverage. If they can afford unsubsidized ObamaCare insurance, then they can probably live with paying the uninsured fee and pay cash for health care visits.
“2.2 million (28 percent) of the people who selected a Marketplace plan during the initial open
enrollment period were young adults between the ages of 18 and 34. A total of 2.7 million (34
percent) were between the ages of 0 and 34 (including additional SEP activity reported through
Saturday, April 19th).”
34 percent are considered young people. We need more if this program is to actually work
And that is if the young people are paying their premiums and not dropping out of coverage soon.
If only 59% signed up for ObamaCare on the exchanges, probably only 66-75% will actually pay for it.
That’s terrible
What is terrible is that ObamaCare is not incentive enough for people to sign up without some sort of subsidy.
We can do better. There needs to be a Conservative alternative to healthcare
I think the details here actually tell you something about the paying enrollees. It is pretty shocking to me that the unsubsidized don’t even put a plan in the shopping cart at a high percentage. Can it really be the case that the subsidized who do put a plan in the cart are going to actually buy at a high rate? I don’t think so. I would still wager the actual payers end up being between 4-5 million max.
There are still only slightly more than a quarter of young people signed up. How do they still believe that it will be able to pay for itself?
Probably just by continuing to inject money into it until it fails on its own.
It would be interesting to find out how much subsidies the people who selected policies received; and how much subsidies the 75% who didn’t select policies were due. Add to this the information on subsidies for those who ultimately drop out this year. That would give us an idea of the demand curve for insurance by the people the PPACA is mean to help. I suspect that the demand isn’t as strong as public health advocates would like to believe.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but this doesn’t include off-exchange enrollments, right? It wouldn’t make sense for those ineligible for subsidies to buy on the exchanges – makes more sense to buy directly from the insurers. Not really sure what the point of all this is.