My must read of the day is "California is averaging 15,000 Obamacare enrollments each day," in the Washington Post:
State health exchanges are reporting a surge in enrollment -- and consumer interest -- as they near a late December deadline to purchase insurance coverage.
If November had an Obamacare surge, consider this the December deluge. California averaged 15,000, daily enrollments early last week about double the sign-ups the state had in early December. New York is now seeing about 4,500 residents choosing plans each day and, in Connecticut, the number is hovering around 1,400. […]
While states did expect a last-minute rush, some report being taken a bit off guard by how quickly it happened.
The administration has consistently said they expect more people, namely young people, to sign up towards the end of the enrollment period. The idea being that young, healthy people don’t have an immediate need like someone who is elderly or living with a preexisting condition – so they’ll wait until the last minute to sign up.
That is a fair point and a logical one, but if we just focus on California it becomes apparent that there are significant problems with touting this as an "enrollment surge" or praising it as a success.
Problem 1: Enrollment by the administration’s standard is not how most would calculate it. Their number is not merely comprised of those who have purchased a plan, but those who have "selected" one – meaning they’ve purchased a plan or placed one in their shopping cart.
California seems to count their numbers in a similar fashion, by not specifying that the plans were purchased, but making the more ambiguous assertion that X applications "were completed." It is likely their measurement is similar to the administrations, and these numbers are a bit high.
Problem 2: Remember how many Californians received notifications saying their policies were being canceled? It was over 1 million, and the state exchange, Covered California, decided not to accept the president’s "fix" to allow those plans to exist for an additional year.
Those 1 million are the people who need to enroll before Dec. 23 in order to have coverage on Jan. 1.
If we take this enrollment surge at face value and assume 15,000 people enrolled in Covered California every day for one full week that would mean there were 105,000 enrollees over the course of seven days.
Let’s imagine they’ve had that level of enrollment since Dec. 1. As of today, enrollment for the month would be at 285,000. If it stayed at this level, by Dec. 23 enrollment for the month would reach 345,000.
It would be an improvement compared to the past two months. In November, California’s health exchange enrolled 107,087. Only 30,830 were enrolled in October.
However, if we add those three months together, that would be roughly 482,917 enrollments in the California exchange – or less than half of the total Californians who are losing their current plans.
Not all 1 million have to or will enter Covered California. Some may be newly eligible for Medicaid or now gaining coverage through their employer, but you can’t expect those people to be in the majority – especially when the employer mandate has been delayed. The exchanges should expect and aim to enroll everyone whose plan has been canceled, and right now they're not even halfway there.
These December numbers aren’t impressive, and their trajectory suggests that many who lost their plans will have a gap in coverage. This is why the administration is asking insurers to provide "retroactive coverage."