Obamacare Enrollments Slow to a Trickle
Only 102,000 people enrolled in Obamacare via the federally operated exchange during the week of December 27 – January 2, bringing the total to 6.5 million. This supports my previous expectation that Obamacare enrollment is petering out.
Charles Gaba at acasignups.net figures about two million are enrolled via state exchanges, bringing the total to just over 9 million.
However, “enrolled” does not mean that they paid their premiums. The federal Administration does not report this. However, as Mr. Gaba notes, Massachusetts reports that its current payment rate is 72 percent. If the same rate prevails nationwide, that would imply 6.5 million “really” enrolled.
Of course, premiums for most new enrollees are not due yet. Nevertheless, I struggle to see how Obamacare will hit its target. Mr. Gaba believes that there will be a rush in the first full week after New Year’s Day, and again when open season closes on February 15. We will see.
Also, it is important to note that when the Administration and Obamacare’s advocates state that they expect 9.1 million to enroll in 2015, they mean exactly that and nothing more than that. If people enroll and don’t pay premiums they are still counted. If people enroll, pay premiums, and then drop out, they are still counted. The figure must go up every month.
In April 2014, the Administration announced that 8.02 million people had enrolled, and the estimate by November 15 was 9.7 million. However, Only 8.5 million had paid premiums up to that date. Because of drop outs, the number of people paying premiums at the time was only 6.7 million.
Wow – 8 minute wait time on average, unless you need a Spanish speaking rep, then it is 30 seconds.
Is that where we should be spending resources?
Good catch. I had not noticed that!
I appreciate the multiple citations/links, but you’re wrong about one point:
“Also, it is important to note that when the Administration and Obamacare’s advocates state that they expect 9.1 million to enroll in 2015, they mean exactly that and nothing more than that. If people enroll and don’t pay premiums they are still counted. If people enroll, pay premiums, and then drop out, they are still counted. The figure must go up every month.”
This is incorrect. The 9.1M figure is how many HHS expects to *pay* for at least the 1st month’s premium, which would be around 10.4 million total plan selections assuming the same 88% overall payment rate (1st month) from last year.
I disagree. HHS never states that in its 11/10/2014 report. It cites the CBO estimate of 13 million, which would be people who pay premiums.
But it did not define its 9 million such. I am not aware of an HHS document which defines “enrolled” as “having paid premium”.
Note that I’ve been saying since they first released that 9.1M figure that I think they’re lowballing bigtime. My own expectation is that it’ll be more like 12.5M selected, 11.0M paying, and dropping down to around 10.5M still enrolled by the end of 2015.
Thank you. Your own blog is a great resource.
When it comes to healthcare insurance, we here in Massachusetts are not an indicator of anything meaningful in the comparison noted above. (Or in any healthcare insurance comparisons going back 30 years for that matter because of our 1985 “healthcare reform” law, Chapter 574, which formalized in legislation our long-standing traditional “access to health care for low income uninsured and underinsured residents” via a surtax on everyone else’s health insurance policies and hospital visits, a program that is still highly used and taxes that still exist despite more than a half dozen subsequent so-called “healthcare reforms” in Massachusetts.)
In comparing 2015 to 2014, Massachusetts might end up having the unique national distinction of increasing our percent uninsured rate (as measured by the state and federal government; that is, including Medicaid). This counter-intuitive statistic will likely occur because in 2014 Massachusetts theoretically had a -1% to -2% uninsured rate as opposed to our traditional 3%-8% uninsured rate. To bean counters, in 2014 more people in Massachusetts had health insurance than it had people.
Thank you. I know it is a stretch to extrapolate from one state to a national trend, but I thought it useful for discussion.