Showing posts with label ACA Signups. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ACA Signups. Show all posts

Wednesday, October 01, 2014

ACA Signups: "Over 9.5 million served"?*

Charles Gaba has been tracking ACA enrollments during the off-season, as he did during open season. He estimates that approximately 9,000 people per day are signing up for private plans via "special enrollment" periods, with net attrition of about 2% per month as people drop plans for a variety of reasons.

Tonight Gaba estimates that there have been about 9.5 total private plan (QHP, for Qualified Health Plan) signups to date That's a number that most people will mentally offset, as HHS recently announced that about 7.3 million are currently enrolled in QHPs. Perhaps a bit less than half of that 2.2 million difference is comprised of people who never paid, the rest dropping plans at various points.

It's natural and to a degree fitting to focus on the number of current enrollees. That number is important in that a) the ACA has a long way to go to full takeup -- CBO forecasts 25 million exchange users by in 2018 --  and b) the states' risk pools need to maintain critical mass to establish a viable market. Still, the total number served since the outset -- discounting, perhaps, most of those who never paid -- is also significant.

Tuesday, February 18, 2014

Are most buyers on ACA exchanges previously uninsured?

ACA signups tracker Charles Gaba, extrapolating from recent New York state data, postulates that 85-plus percent of February signups for Qualified Health Plans (QHPs) on ACA exchanges are people who were previously uninsured.

If this inference is on target, it shouldn't be too surprising -- though it either contradicts or suggest a rapid reversal of trends asserted in prior reports from insurers and McKinsey & Co. We know that over 80% of QHP signups qualify for subsidies. That suggests almost by definition that a substantial percentage of signups would previously have found insurance on the individual market unaffordable. Moreover, we also know that less than 20% of those who complete the application process on the exchanges but do not qualify for subsidies actually sign up for a plan on the exchanges.