The Obama administration is celebrating the enrollment of at least 7.5 million Americans into health insurance plans under the Affordable Care Act, despite having little information on the demographics of the applicants. Some initial answers are starting to trickle in and—following a forum hosted by Families USA—the insurance industry has a better view of the enrollees in some of the country’s more successful state-based exchanges.
Kentucky, New York, Washington, California and Connecticut all boasted functioning insurance marketplaces as well as the optional expansion of Medicaid. Families USA brought the states’ exchange directors together to discuss the results they have seen so far.
Kentucky
According to Bill Nold, deputy executive director at the Office of the Kentucky Health Benefit Exchange, the state has counted 400,000 new enrollees, including 2,000 enrollments on March 31 alone. Of those 400,000, 315,000 signed up for Medicaid and 33% are under the age of 35.
The state’s enrollment extension expired April 11, and Nold expects enrollment numbers to rise even further as a result of that special enrollment period. In an effort to drive up applicants, the state sent out 30,000 emails to people who had abandoned an application after an initial start.
New York
Roughly 39,000 New Yorkers enrolled for coverage in the final days of open enrollment and an estimated 80% previously did not have insurance, said Donna Frescatore of the New York State of Health.
That number satisfies some industry concern that many of the recent enrollees were those who had previously been insured, but lost coverage due to tightened standards under the Affordable Care Act.
More than 950,000 residents have signed up for commercial or government plans through the 16 insurance companies on its exchange.
Washington
The highly successful Washington Health Benefit Exchange signed up 146,000 new enrollees through March 31, including 8,000 people who signed up on the last possible day. Of those enrollees, “nearly all” have already paid their premiums, said exchange director Richard K. Onizuka.
Onizuka credits Washington’s successful premium payment rate to the application process. Washington Healthplanfinder allows applicants to pay their first premium while signing up.
Thanks to expanded Medicaid coverage, about 268,000 Washingtonians gained Medicaid coverage for the first time.
California
The Golden State extended its health insurance deadline through April 15 and as a result, gained more than 70,000 additional applicants. That adds to the nearly one million state residents who had already enrolled through the exchange at the end of February.
About 1.1 million Californians were determined as likely to qualify for Medi-Cal coverage.
Altogether, Covered California Executive Director Peter Lee estimates more than 3 million Californians “benefit[ted] from the Affordable Care Act.”
Also of note is a California Association of Health Underwriters (CAHU) source suggesting that 80% of enrollment in the state exchange was generated by producers.
Connecticut
Connecticut saw 198,878 new enrollees gain health insurance, including 121,281 who enrolled in Medicaid. Access Health CT has logged 801,509 unique visitors to the website and has fielded more than 366,975 calls.
Of the new enrollees, 76,597 applied for a private insurance policy through the state exchange.
Room for doubt
While the exchange directors cautioned that final results of health reform rollout won’t be clear for several months, other analysts find cause to doubt even the initial figures.
Robert Laszewski, president of Health Policy and Strategy Association, told Kaiser Health News the question of whether uninsured Americans are gaining coverage through the public marketplaces remains unanswered.
“They’re not making a dent in the uninsured—9.3 million gained coverage, but most of those were in the employer market, and few were in the exchange market so whether they’re coming near the objective to reduce the uninsured through exchanges is the question,” he said.
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