Obamacare had lots of sign-ups on deadline day

[TomCADem]

Source: Washington Post

California estimates that 27,000 people picked insurance plans this past Monday and 29,000 the Friday prior. Just last week, the state was averaging 15,000 sign-ups per day. Washington state had 10,000 people enroll Monday, and a total of 20,000 from Dec. 20-23. That accounts for one in 10 Washingtonians picking private health insurance plans. And New York had about 20,000 sign-ups come in that same day.

Of course, these are only the three states we know about. The 36 states on HealthCare.gov do not release data on their own schedule but rather rely on the federal government's monthly data sets. We won't know December enrollment numbers until sometime in the middle of January

Charles Gaba has been going to painstaking efforts to show the trajectory of health law sign-ups over the past three months. His graph (which is better viewed here, on his Web site) gives a helpful visual sense of what the last month has looked like for health-care enrollment. This uses all available data, including the monthly, federal reports and more up-to-date state data, too.

By Gaba's count, we're at 5.75 million sign-ups, between those who have enrolled in private plans and those who have qualified for the Medicaid program. The balance still tips toward public plan enrollments, but, as the chart cautions, this is still preliminary data. If we do see a similar December enrollment spike among the federally run state markets, that will be a pretty quick turn-around from October's dismal showing. If not, though, that's going to make the next three months of open enrollment, which runs until March 31, all the more crucial.

Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/12/26/obamacare-had-lots-of-sign-ups-on-deadline-day/

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The graph at link is very instructive. Also, what is often ignored is that the enrollment numbers typically do not include the 3.1 million young people who are enrolled in their parent's plans by virtue of the ACA. If you add them to the 5.75 million who have coverage through enrollments and the expansion of Medicaid, then by virtue of the ACA, nearly 9 million people have gained access to healthcare coverage. But, have you heard this in the MSM?

Of course not. And, it is this corporate censorship, which helps explains why Republicans have been able to increase their standing in the polls.

[BlueStreak]

1. Don't believe a word of the BS when people say the exemptions are hurting the Ins. Cos.

This is LOADS of new customers for them, and most of them are paying pretty hefty premiums when you include the portion that the Federal government is subsidizing. The insurance companies are going to do just fine, and they know it. Throughout this whole process, we have barely heard a peep out of them. They spoke up a little with the controversy about canceled policies. And the reality with that one is that they wanted to move people from the pre-ACA policies to the more expensive ACA policies (complete with government subsidies). These will be more profitable for them. They didn't really want Obama to keep the old policies alive, but the Republicans forced that issue.

Nonetheless, the insurance companies are plenty smart enough to know they have a nice gravy train here and they aren't going to do anything to upset that.

[BlueStreak]

2. The under-26 is double-counting to some degree

Some of those under-26 people will be ones who took the opportunity to buy their own policies on the exchange now. And others will have landed jobs where health care is provided, so I doubt that the 3.1M number is additive. A number a little over 2M is probably solid though.

And we have to remember that the ACAsignups.org chart does not show the policies ACTUALLY started -- only the enrollments, which are an INTENT to start. Some percentage will fail to make their first payment.

Taking all this into account, it is still probably safe to say there are at least 6M getting coverage in 2014 would would not have coverage if not for the ACA. And that is good. By the end of open enrollment, we'll be around 10M.

That means just about everybody in the lower 99% will personally know somebody who is covered in 2014 because of "Obamacare".

[TomCADem]

3. Well, if they are under 26, but still opt to buy a policy, then...

...you are right, but the question is why if they do not need to? On other hand, if they are aging out to 26, then it is zero sum, because as they age out, someone ages into their bracket of being a college age individual who benefits from the provision of being allowed to remain on their parent's plan. In fact, the under 26 crowd is probably steadily growing simply based on population growth.

[BlueStreak]

4. Subsidies

Let's say the parents don't qualify for a subsidy, but the 24-year-old does. It might make a lot of sense for the 24-year-old to buy his or her own policy. It might be practically free. The ACA allows then to stay on the parent's policy, but it doesn't say the coverage is free to the parents.

[Cha]

5. Thanks for the news, Tom!

[Lefta Dissenter]

6. Hey, I'm a procrastinator!

I finally selected my plan and completed the process on the 23rd.

I was able to stay with the same insurer, the same network of providers, save more than $100/month from what I had been paying, and improve my coverage from 20% copay to 10% and reduce my deductible to almost nothing. And this is in Wisconsin, where Walker would rather throw me underneath a train than see me insured. OH, that's RIGHT, there's NO EFFING TRAIN!!! But that's a whole 'nother story...