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Obamacare Starting to Hit Its Stride?
Posted on 1/24/14 at 10:52 pm
Posted on 1/24/14 at 10:52 pm
Obamacare Private Plan Enrollment Reaches 3 Million
By Alex Wayne; Bloomberg
About 800,000 people signed up for private health plans through Obamacare in January, pushing total enrollment to 3 million as negative perceptions about the program give way to more practical needs.
Kathleen Sebelius, secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, touted the January figures in a speech today in Jacksonville, Florida, which add to the 2.2 million who enrolled from Oct. 1 through December. Her agency later said in a blog post that “as our outreach efforts kick into even higher gear, we anticipate these numbers will continue to grow.”
The acceleration may indicate increased familiarity and interest in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act among people who previously had heard only of its problems, said Ron Pollack, executive director of the advocacy group Families USA. Public opinion about Obamacare plunged after the Oct. 1 debut of the insurance exchanges greeted consumers with website breakdowns, higher prices and potentially broken promises.
The Fate of Obamacare »
“People were bombarded about the politics and learned precious little about how it would affect their lives,” Pollack, whose Washington-based organization has been promoting the health law, said in a telephone interview. “You’re seeing a significant acceleration that is just going to be larger and larger as we move toward the end of March.”
Insurers Benefit
Higher enrollment should benefit WellPoint Inc. (WLP), Humana Inc. (HUM) and other managed-care insurers that rely on a large and diverse patient-mix to balance out the costs of coverage. If the pace of sign-ups continues, enrollment should be close to 5 million by the end of March, said Ana Gupte, an analyst at Leerink Partners in New York.
“This is positive for HMO stocks that have made a bet in favor of the exchanges,” she said in an e-mail.
WellPoint fell 1.2 percent to $84.74 in at 12:27 p.m. in New York amid a broader selloff of stocks worldwide. Health Net Inc. dropped 3.5 percent to $33.54, while Humana lost less than 1 percent to $95.53.
The Affordable Care Act, which mainly took full effect Jan. 1, marks the largest U.S. expansion of health insurance in more than 40 years. The law set up government-run insurance exchanges where Americans can buy private health plans with the help of federal tax credits. It also expanded eligibility in some state-run Medicaid programs for the poor.
Meeting Targets
The Obama administration had a goal of signing up about 7 million people in private plans by the end of March, based on estimates from the Congressional Budget Office. The law’s first enrollment period ends March 31.
“We continue to see strong interest nationwide from consumers who want access to quality, affordable coverage,” Marilyn Tavenner, the administrator of the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, said in a blog post.
A Gallup poll released yesterday showed that the percentage of adults without health insurance in the U.S. fell to 16.1 percent this month, the lowest level since the end of 2012.
The 3 million sign-ups reflect people who selected a plan using federal and state enrollment systems. People must pay their first month’s premium to complete their enrollment, and it’s unclear what fraction of enrollees haven’t yet paid.
Word-of-Mouth
Pollack said the enrollment acceleration is driven mainly by word-of-mouth, as people hear stories of friends or neighbors who have found exchange plans they feel are affordable. People earning less than four times the poverty level, or about $94,000 for a family of four, are eligible for tax credits that reduce the monthly premium for exchange plans. About 79 percent of people who had enrolled through December benefited from subsidies, according to a report from Sebelius’s department.
Sebelius’s speech in Jacksonville was part of a travel schedule that frequently takes her to large states with many uninsured people whose Republican governors refused to build their own insurance exchanges. She has made multiple appearances in both Florida and Texas over the past six months, two of the 36 states covered by the federal insurance exchange.
By Alex Wayne; Bloomberg
About 800,000 people signed up for private health plans through Obamacare in January, pushing total enrollment to 3 million as negative perceptions about the program give way to more practical needs.
Kathleen Sebelius, secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, touted the January figures in a speech today in Jacksonville, Florida, which add to the 2.2 million who enrolled from Oct. 1 through December. Her agency later said in a blog post that “as our outreach efforts kick into even higher gear, we anticipate these numbers will continue to grow.”
The acceleration may indicate increased familiarity and interest in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act among people who previously had heard only of its problems, said Ron Pollack, executive director of the advocacy group Families USA. Public opinion about Obamacare plunged after the Oct. 1 debut of the insurance exchanges greeted consumers with website breakdowns, higher prices and potentially broken promises.
The Fate of Obamacare »
“People were bombarded about the politics and learned precious little about how it would affect their lives,” Pollack, whose Washington-based organization has been promoting the health law, said in a telephone interview. “You’re seeing a significant acceleration that is just going to be larger and larger as we move toward the end of March.”
Insurers Benefit
Higher enrollment should benefit WellPoint Inc. (WLP), Humana Inc. (HUM) and other managed-care insurers that rely on a large and diverse patient-mix to balance out the costs of coverage. If the pace of sign-ups continues, enrollment should be close to 5 million by the end of March, said Ana Gupte, an analyst at Leerink Partners in New York.
“This is positive for HMO stocks that have made a bet in favor of the exchanges,” she said in an e-mail.
WellPoint fell 1.2 percent to $84.74 in at 12:27 p.m. in New York amid a broader selloff of stocks worldwide. Health Net Inc. dropped 3.5 percent to $33.54, while Humana lost less than 1 percent to $95.53.
The Affordable Care Act, which mainly took full effect Jan. 1, marks the largest U.S. expansion of health insurance in more than 40 years. The law set up government-run insurance exchanges where Americans can buy private health plans with the help of federal tax credits. It also expanded eligibility in some state-run Medicaid programs for the poor.
Meeting Targets
The Obama administration had a goal of signing up about 7 million people in private plans by the end of March, based on estimates from the Congressional Budget Office. The law’s first enrollment period ends March 31.
“We continue to see strong interest nationwide from consumers who want access to quality, affordable coverage,” Marilyn Tavenner, the administrator of the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, said in a blog post.
A Gallup poll released yesterday showed that the percentage of adults without health insurance in the U.S. fell to 16.1 percent this month, the lowest level since the end of 2012.
The 3 million sign-ups reflect people who selected a plan using federal and state enrollment systems. People must pay their first month’s premium to complete their enrollment, and it’s unclear what fraction of enrollees haven’t yet paid.
Word-of-Mouth
Pollack said the enrollment acceleration is driven mainly by word-of-mouth, as people hear stories of friends or neighbors who have found exchange plans they feel are affordable. People earning less than four times the poverty level, or about $94,000 for a family of four, are eligible for tax credits that reduce the monthly premium for exchange plans. About 79 percent of people who had enrolled through December benefited from subsidies, according to a report from Sebelius’s department.
Sebelius’s speech in Jacksonville was part of a travel schedule that frequently takes her to large states with many uninsured people whose Republican governors refused to build their own insurance exchanges. She has made multiple appearances in both Florida and Texas over the past six months, two of the 36 states covered by the federal insurance exchange.
19
Posted on 1/24/14 at 10:53 pm to sammyptiger
sshhhh the narrative here is it is a failure. Get with the program!
Posted on 1/24/14 at 10:55 pm to sammyptiger
Are those "official" numbers of people who purchased a plan or those who simply put one in their shopping cart?
Also, are they still counting those who were part of Medicare expansion?
Also, are they still counting those who were part of Medicare expansion?
This post was edited on 1/24/14 at 10:56 pm
Posted on 1/24/14 at 10:56 pm to sammyptiger
I don't care if it's a rip roaring success, the government now has the power to force me to buy a product.
Posted on 1/24/14 at 10:56 pm to Scruffy
quote:I don't know. Other news sources covered the story about the same and didn't really give any more details. I suspect its the shopping cart variety though, because that was the major problem just a few weeks ago.
Scruffy
Posted on 1/24/14 at 10:58 pm to sammyptiger
I'm pretty sure it's just shopping cart. No fees paid.
Posted on 1/24/14 at 10:59 pm to sammyptiger
Well, if I recall correctly, the administration won't give the actual numbers out.
Posted on 1/24/14 at 11:00 pm to sammyptiger
Enrollments != people buying plans. They can enroll all 300+ million in this country but it really means nothing if nobody is actually buying plans.
Posted on 1/24/14 at 11:04 pm to Scruffy
I pulled this out of a Washington post article:
One other lingering question in these enrollment figures is what percent of those who picked a plan have actually paid a premium. We don't have a figure on that from the federal government because it's the private insurance companies, rather than the government, that typically collect these payments. We do have a few clues: major health insurer Aetna says that over 70 percent of those signed up had paid for policies as of mid-January. In Washington State, one of the few exchanges that does collect premium payments, slightly fewer than half of shoppers who selected a plan have sent a premium payment to that insurer (67,200 paid customers versus 72,636 still awaiting payment, to be exact.) Subscribers aren't counted as enrolled in health insurance, from the plan's view, until they make that first plan payment.
One other lingering question in these enrollment figures is what percent of those who picked a plan have actually paid a premium. We don't have a figure on that from the federal government because it's the private insurance companies, rather than the government, that typically collect these payments. We do have a few clues: major health insurer Aetna says that over 70 percent of those signed up had paid for policies as of mid-January. In Washington State, one of the few exchanges that does collect premium payments, slightly fewer than half of shoppers who selected a plan have sent a premium payment to that insurer (67,200 paid customers versus 72,636 still awaiting payment, to be exact.) Subscribers aren't counted as enrolled in health insurance, from the plan's view, until they make that first plan payment.
Posted on 1/24/14 at 11:05 pm to sammyptiger
quote:
Obamacare Private Plan Enrollment Reaches 3 Million
quote:
The 3 million sign-ups reflect people who selected a plan using federal and state enrollment systems. People must pay their first month’s premium to complete their enrollment, and it’s unclear what fraction of enrollees haven’t yet paid.
It really is impossible for me to articulate the depths of my hatred of the media in this country.
Posted on 1/24/14 at 11:06 pm to sammyptiger
So, starting with 32 million uninsured persons, the fed govt spent $640 million just for the software to get less than 10% of them to sign up?
Great success!
Great success!
Posted on 1/24/14 at 11:07 pm to stuntman
The gov still wont release those numbers. I found some info on that and posted it above.
This post was edited on 1/24/14 at 11:10 pm
Posted on 1/24/14 at 11:08 pm to sammyptiger
Except for these parts Obamacare is doing swimmingly :
quote:
2014: Small-business policy cancellations. This year, the small-business market is going to get hit with the policy cancellations that roiled the individual market last year. Some firms will get better deals, but others will find that their coverage is being canceled in favor of more expensive policies that don’t cover as many of the doctors or procedures that they want. This is going to be a rolling problem throughout the year.
· Summer 2014: Insurers get a sizable chunk of money from the government to cover any excess losses. When the costs are published, this is going to be wildly unpopular: The administration has spent three years saying that Obamacare was the antidote to abuses by Big, Bad Insurance Companies, and suddenly it’s a mechanism to funnel taxpayer money to them?
· Fall 2014: New premiums are announced.
· 2014 and onward: Medicare reimbursement cuts eat into hospital margins, triggering a lot of lobbying and sad ads about how Beloved Local Hospital may have to close.
· Spring 2015: The Internal Revenue Service starts collecting individual mandate penalties: 1 percent of income in the first year. That’s going to be a nasty shock to folks who thought the penalty was just $95. I, like many other analysts, expect the administration to announce a temporary delay sometime after April 1, 2014.
· Spring 2015: The IRS demands that people whose income was higher than they projected pay back their excess subsidies. This could be thousands of dollars.
· Spring 2015: Cuts to Medicare Advantage, which the administration punted on in 2013, are scheduled to go into effect. This will reduce benefits currently enjoyed by millions of seniors, which is why they didn’t let them go into effect this year.
· Fall 2015: This is when expert Bob Laszewski says insurers will begin exiting the market if the exchange policies aren’t profitable.
· Fall 2017: Companies and unions start learning whether their plans will get hit by the “Cadillac tax,” a stiff excise tax on expensive policies that will hit plans with generous benefits or an older and sicker employee base. Expect a lot of companies and unions to radically decrease benefits and increase cost-sharing as a result.
· January 2018: The temporary risk-adjustment plans, which the administration is relying on to keep insurers in the marketplaces even if their customer pool is older and sicker than projected, run out. Now if insurers take losses, they just lose the money.
· Fall 2018: Buyers find out that subsidy growth is capped for next year’s premiums; instead of simply being pegged to the price of the second-cheapest silver plan, whatever that cost is, their growth is fixed. This will show up in higher premiums for families -- and, potentially, in an adverse-selection death spiral.
Posted on 1/24/14 at 11:10 pm to sammyptiger
quote:
Obamacare Starting to Hit Its Stride?
Posted on 1/24/14 at 11:20 pm to sammyptiger
Fun fact of the day; My small business signed up more customers today than Oregon's online Obamacare exchange has in 3 months.
I signed up 2 new customers.
I signed up 2 new customers.
Posted on 1/24/14 at 11:29 pm to sammyptiger
quote:
Obamacare Starting to Hit Its Stride?
No, post less.
Posted on 1/24/14 at 11:30 pm to davesdawgs
OK
Posted on 1/24/14 at 11:32 pm to sammyptiger
If someone is in the individual health insurance market, they have to enter the exchanges don't they? Why was there ever any question that they would?
Posted on 1/24/14 at 11:33 pm to sammyptiger
quote:So let's sort thru numbers associated with this "success".
About 800,000 people signed up for private health plans through Obamacare in January, pushing total enrollment to 3 million as negative perceptions about the program give way to more practical needs.
6.2 million Americans lost their healthcare coverage d/t Obamacare.
3 million have signed up for new plans.
The original effort was designed to address the 10, or 20, or 30, or 40, or 50 million supposedly uninsured Americans (The figures varied depending on which democrat was pulling random numbers out of the hat).
The latest estimates are that 660,000 of these previously uninsured have actually signed up for obamacare. Working with dem claims of 40,000,000 previously uninsured, 660K = 1.6%.
Winning!
Posted on 1/24/14 at 11:33 pm to sammyptiger
Does that 3 million include medicaid enrolls ,
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