You won’t see much about it in the mainstream media but there’s been an interesting development. Enrollment in the healthcare insurance exchanges has actually declined from its peak:
According to a press release issued by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services on Tuesday, the number of paying Obamacare enrollees fell to 9.9 million by June 30, 2015, thus falling below the 10 million-person enrollment milestone many proponents had cheered. Put another way, roughly 1.8 million people who were enrolled in Obamacare at the end of February had either not paid their bills or were dropped by their insurers.
The CMS suggests that a number of factors could continue to play into this expected degradation in enrollment rates following the end of the open enrollment period. For some it could be as simple as coverage no longer seeming affordable. For others, life changes could affect their need for an Obamacare plan. Landing a new job or getting married could mean that health insurance purchased on an Obamacare exchange is no longer needed. Lastly, the CMS notes that about 423,000 of the 1.8 million consumers had their coverage terminated because sufficient documentation of their citizenship or immigration status could not be verified.
However, the CMS pointed out that even with the expected drop-off in paying customers, the 9.9 million enrollees is still higher than the 9.1 million targeted by year’s end.
I can think of some other explanations. It’s possible that more of those formerly enrolled are now eligible for Medicaid or Medicare. Maybe more are now being covered by employer-based plans.
It does seem to me that it’s a notable milestone. We may have reached as many as can be reached.
Need more data. Exchange participation will likely be heavily affected by economic conditions, good and bad. IIRC, the original projections were that it would take until 2023 for enrollments to reach some kind of equilibrium.
Steve
BTW, the article to which I linked finally arrives at the point I’ve made for decades: the practical measure of healthcare reform is going to be cost control. It’s the sine qua non of healthcare reform.
This IBD article mirrors what the Motley Fool piece said, and more….
You ain’t seen nothing yet. Wait till Amerikans realize they can soon go to Cuba for full medical and dental treatment that costs less than their deductibles under Obamacare and for abortions that have been legal there for decades.
The same people predicted major increases last year. The end result was that, on average, the increases were close to zero. IBD were the folks who said that hawking would be dead if he had to receive care through the British NHS. They are so blindingly ignorant on health care issues that I wouldn’t quote them even if I agreed with them. I would assume I was probably wrong.
As to cost controls, it seems a bit early to give up on the market mechanisms being employed with the ACA. Maybe insurance companies really will compete with each other and large deductibles drive down costs, and conservatives will be proven correct. When we do move on to cost controls, how we do that will matter a lot IMO. Rather than trying to price control each and every fee, every part of every procedure, I think it will probably be better to head where CMS has already been trailing, towards global fees. Let providers figure out how to divvy up the money, while retaining quality.
Steve
Steve, the IBD article was less an opinion piece than simply quoting enrollment numbers, percentages of insurance premium increases etc. About the only “prediction” made was at the end where it doubted the high water mark CBO expectation of 21 million enrollment not to be met. Considering the fact that enrollment has already dropped, that premiums are expected to increase, that satisfaction with medical options in the exchanges are not great IBD’s gloomy assessment is not entirely without merit, is it? Or, is this publication just making up these figures, trends and assessments out of thin air?