[See update at 5a and 5b: light on who's unsubsidized]
HHS released its midterm report on ACA private plan enrollment for 2016 today. A few observations:
1. While HHS was obviously lowballing when it published enrollment projections in October, enrollment has already hit the lower range of those projections. The targets were 11.0--14.1 million plan selections by Jan. 31, 2016, including 2.8--3.9 million new customers. As of Dec. 26, all exchanges combined had just shy of 11.3 million enrollees, including 3.0 million new customers.
2. The enrollee pool in the 38 states using HealthCare.gov is slightly wealthier this year than last. For 2016 to date, 37% of hc.gov enrollees for whom income data is available have incomes in the 100-150% FPL range. As of the end of OEII last February, 40% were in that range.There have been proportionately more buyers with incomes over 250% FPL this season. The difference is probably due to new Medicaid expansions in Pennsylvania, Indiana and Alaska, which probably put a couple of hundred thousand private plan enrollees into Medicaid.
HHS released its midterm report on ACA private plan enrollment for 2016 today. A few observations:
1. While HHS was obviously lowballing when it published enrollment projections in October, enrollment has already hit the lower range of those projections. The targets were 11.0--14.1 million plan selections by Jan. 31, 2016, including 2.8--3.9 million new customers. As of Dec. 26, all exchanges combined had just shy of 11.3 million enrollees, including 3.0 million new customers.
2. The enrollee pool in the 38 states using HealthCare.gov is slightly wealthier this year than last. For 2016 to date, 37% of hc.gov enrollees for whom income data is available have incomes in the 100-150% FPL range. As of the end of OEII last February, 40% were in that range.There have been proportionately more buyers with incomes over 250% FPL this season. The difference is probably due to new Medicaid expansions in Pennsylvania, Indiana and Alaska, which probably put a couple of hundred thousand private plan enrollees into Medicaid.
