BeWellNM, New Mexico’s health insurance exchange, announced Feb. 8 that 54,856 individuals have secured insurance through the federal ACA website. Of those purchasing through the exchange, 24,664 are new customers and 30,201 renewed their policies.
More than half of the previous year’s insurance buyers were on a plan provided by Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Mexico, said health exchange chief executive officer Amy Dowd. Blue Cross Blue Shield discontinued a good number of individual plans by 2016, forcing many to look for other plans elsewhere.
“We knew that was going to be a challenge — half of the membership was enrolled in a discontinued Blue Cross plan,” Dowd remarked. She, however, was happy with the number of enrollees that used the exchange to choose their new plans.
In addition to private health insurance, Dowd noted that there were 94 small-business groups that purchased plans on the exchange, serving about 1,329 employees.
Dowd shared that the large number of enrollees would not have been possible without the walk-in centers the exchange set up in Santa Fe, Las Cruces, Gallup and Farmington. According to Dowd, it was the Santa Fe center that handled the most individual appointments, at 213, through Dec. 31.
Four more insurance companies were permitted by the state to sell insurance through the exchange: Molina Health of New Mexico; New Mexico Health Connections, Presbyterian Health Plan and Christus Health Plan.
