1.8 m short

[Gob]

About 4.2 million Americans have signed up for private health insurance through marketplaces set up by President Barack Obama's health law, officials said.

The Obama administration now has less than a month to hit their goal of six million enrolments through the sites.

Under the law, Americans without some form of health insurance after 31 March will pay a tax penalty.

A recent Gallup survey suggests the number of uninsured Americans has dropped this year, although modesty so.

Tuesday's report from the US health department includes 940,000 new sign-ups during the month of February.

While the rate of signups on the federal and state-run websites have increased since October 2013, the White House will not meet its goal given recent daily enrolment rates.

But US health officials say they expect a surge of younger people towards the 31 March deadline.

The six million estimate was already revised down after technical glitches bedevilled the site during its launch.

The law aims to reduce healthcare costs by signing up young and healthy Americans to defray costs for older, sicker residents.

But only 25% of those enrolling by the end of February were between 18-34 years old.

[Long Run]

The good news is, that after the disastrous start, there has been an increasing number of enrollments.

The bad news is that they are going to fall short of insureds, especially healthy insureds, to make the program sustaining; we can hope for better after the taxpayers bail out the insurers' losses.

The good news is that the number of uninsured has dropped, if modestly.

The bad news is that the cost for this small gain has been huge and, at this point, in no way justifies the disruption and costs of the ACA. Worse, and nearly criminal, is the failure by the Administration to have any measurements regarding whether those who sign up on the Exchange were previously uninsured. That's right -- they have failed to get statistics to tell us if the law is working. The whole point of the law is to reduce the number of those without insurance, but within all the statistic gathering they did not provide for any statistics that tell us the most important thing.

The good news is that people are looking at the Exchange and other plans.

The bad news is most who do so aren't buying because it costs too much.

Let's wait until the end of the month to see how things stand; maybe there will be a surge of healthy, younger insureds. That seems unlikely, especially since there has been so much cost reluctance among people eager to get insurance, but you never know.

[Lord Jim]

So now they've taken the Orwellian step of pretending that the bar to meet for the paid sign ups to make this work was only six million, rather than the seven it's been for two years, in order to make it look like they missed it by less?

Hell, why stop there? Why not claim the goal was four million; then they can say they've exceeded their expectations...

And of course these numbers remain complete BS since they continue to include people who haven't paid, and therefore aren't truly enrolled...

[rubato]

There was no 'bar'. It was just a CBO prediction. And in many states the CBO prediction has been exceeded, by a lot. But the conservative "let them die" states have had an effect on the totals. As have the consistent efforts of the Repuglican party to kill the whole thing. It is a tribute to the design success that it has done very well.

The 'top line' effects are all to the good.


yrs,
rubato

[Crackpot]

http://www.funnyordie.com/embed/18e820ec3f

[Lord Jim]

CP, I was going to post that; I saw part of it on the news yesterday...

Don't know how many youts it's going to sign up for Obamacare, but it's pretty funny...

[Crackpot]

Apparently is got a sizeable amount of clickthroughs

[Gob]

But last week came word that with just 15 days left for people to enroll for federal coverage, just 4.2 million had. The math is simple: That’s just 9 percent of the supposedly 46 million uninsured.

“It will be a larger number than that by the end of March,” Mr. Obama promised in an interview with WebMD. “At this point, enough people are signing up that the Affordable Care Act is going to work.”

Still, the obvious question is: We changed the $2.7 trillion health care system to sign up 4.2 million people?



Read more: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/201 ... z2wBcusq3L

[MajGenl.Meade]

Well I signed up but the "Pay Premium" button didn't work. Guess I'll have to wait a bit and see if Kaiser really does "contact you in a few days".

[rubato]

Closer to 5.26M to date and 6.22M is the current projection by the end of the month.

http://acasignups.net/

Private QHPs: (4.68M - 6.00M) • Medicaid/CHIP: (4.36M - 5.95M) • Sub26ers: 3.10M

Grand Total as of March 19, 2014: (12.1 M - 15.0 M)

Enrollment Period Elapsed: 92.9% • CBO QHP Projection Attained: 74.3% (or 86.7%)

3/31 QHP Projection as of 3/19: March: 1.98M / Total: 6.22M

Est. Current Exch. QHPs as of 3/19: March: 1.02M / Total: 5.26M

Est. Date to hit 5.5 Million Exch. QHPs: Sunday, March 23


http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/won ... ting-6-2m/

"Cry cry cry, that's what I want you to do."

yrs,
rubato

[rubato]

Charles Gaba, whom I've been linking to since November, is the only accurate and up to date source and the only one to predict accurately when they would reach 5M signups.





yrs,
rubato

[Lord Jim]

Yes, aside from the fact that those numbers include those who haven't paid and therefore aren't really enrolled, and those numbers also don't differentiate between newly ensured and people who signed up because they were dumped off the programs they were promised they could keep, those are wonderfully accurate numbers...

Very impressive...

[Long Run]

And it is worth repeating that the reason we do not have the relevant data about how well the program is going is because the Administration incompetently or intentionally set up the system to NOT gather that information. The really important information needed is not whether the target number is 6 or 7 million, but what is the mix of that population -- will it have enough healthy people to make it sustainable. The early sampling/polling is indicating serious problems, but we will have to wait until after the end of the month when the money flows in and the insurers can report solid data; and then subsequently when the claims start.

[Guinevere]

I know this much: since we are now in Mom's third stint in the cardiac ICU since early January, she has to be pretty close to the lifetime limits on her supplemental insurance and there is no way she could pay for the life-saving care she has been receiving.

Oh, and she has the same plan that she had previously, and since I now pay her bills, her cost of her plan went up $3/month in 2014.

So stick it up your pipes, please. I know I'll be out there continuing to work to make sure the ACA sticks around, and opposing assholes like this one, who have no clue (and don't want to have one) about why this law is so important:

Less than two years after losing his re-election bid in his home state, former Sen. Scott Brown (R-Mass.) is apparently trying again, this time running in New Hampshire – where’s he still learning quite a bit.

It’s not altogether clear why Brown is running in the Granite State, but his strategy has nevertheless taken shape: the Republican intends to hit the campaign trail complaining about the Affordable Care Act. It worked in one state in 2010, Brown figures, so maybe it’ll work in a different state in 2014.

With this in mind, Brown visited with state Rep. Herb Richardson (R-N.H.) and his wife over the weekend at the lawmaker’s home, where the Senate candidate called the ACA a “monstrosity.” Sam Stein flagged an account of the meeting from the local newspaper (pdf):

Richardson was injured on the job and was forced to live on his workers’ comp payments for an extended period of time, which ultimately cost the couple their house on Williams Street. The couple had to pay $1,100 a month if they wanted to maintain their health insurance coverage under the federal COBRA law.

Richardson said he only received some $2,000 a month in workers’ comp. payments, however, leaving little for them to live on. “Thank God for Obamacare!” his wife exclaimed.

Now, thanks to the subsidy for which they qualify, the Richardsons only pay $136 a month for health insurance that covers them both.

The state lawmaker added that the health care law, which Brown claims to abhor, has been a “financial lifesaver” for his family.

According to the local reporter, the former senator listened to the Richardsons’ perspective and then changed the subject.

Running against an abstraction is easy; running against a law that’s currently benefiting millions of families nationwide is a little trickier. That may slowly be dawning on Brown right about now.

[rubato]

Anyone who cared enough to know the truth would have clicked through and seen that the numbers of paid and unpaid were accounted for. But it would have to be someone who cared more about the truth than bullshit.


yrs,
rubato

[rubato]

We're getting close to the closing bell and the last-minute rush is in full flood. 2.02M total signups projected for the month.

Obamacare so far is a big win. 12.2M to 15.8M policies is closer to 18 to 24 million individuals (if the multiplier is closer to 1.5 individuals per policy than 1.0 )


http://acasignups.net/

Grand Total as of March 25, 2014: (12.2 M - 15.8 M)

Enrollment Period Elapsed: 96.2% • Est. % of CBO QHP Projection: 81.5% (or 95.1%)

Current 3/31 Exch. QHP Projection: March: 2.02M / Total: 6.26M

Current Exch. QHPs as of 3/25: March: 1.46M / Total: 5.70M

For those who cared, Gaba has been tracking the percent paid for a long time now. Some states only report paid enrollees thus the 100% numbers for those.:


http://acasignups.net/14/03/21/paidunpa ... ha-updated



85% have paid up even though they don't have to until the end of the month.

[rubato]

http://acasignups.net/

California: 39K QHPs in 2 days, 4x Feb rate, 2x early March rate; Total Exchange QHP projection increased to 6.4M
by Charles Gaba on Wed, 03/26/2014 - 11:46pm

Blammo. Remember how I noted that back in December, California managed to hit 30K exchange QHPs in a single day, and 20K/day for several other days between Christmas and New Year's Eve?

Well, it looks like we've hit the 20K/day mark. From today's L.A. Times:

The site — the main portal for insurance marketplaces in 36 states — drew 1.2 million visitors Tuesday and 1.1 million visitors Monday, according to the administration.

Over the same period, call centers received more than 500,000 calls. California's state-run health insurance exchange reported a similar surge in interest, with nearly 40,000 people picking a health plan Monday and Tuesday.

Now, this is awesome news, as it suggests a national rate of around 100K/day (CA has averaged around 20% of the national QHP enrollments all along).

However, it also poses a slight dilemma for me, since there's an 8 day gap between the existing March data (03/02 - 03/15) and these 2 days (03/24 - 03/25).

Private QHPs (5.35M - 6.56M) • Medicaid/CHIP (4.62M - 6.40M) • Sub26ers (2.50M - 3.10M)

Grand Total as of March 26, 2014: (12.4 M - 16.0 M)

Enrollment Period Elapsed: 96.7% • Est. % of CBO QHP Projection: 84.9% (or 99.0%)

Exchange-Based QHP Projection: Total: 6.39M

(OFF-Exchange QHPs are at least 558K, more likely 4M or more nationally)

Estimated Total Exchange-Based QHPs as of 3/26: 5.94M
(should hit 6 Million sometime Friday, possibly even Thursday?)

[Econoline]

[rubato]

The late surge is driving the numbers up even further than expected. C. Gaba's projection is now up to 6.54M:

Private QHPs (5.53M - 6.77M) • Medicaid/CHIP (4.63M - 6.40M) • Sub26ers (2.50M - 3.10M)

Grand Total as of March 27, 2014: (12.6 M - 16.2 M)

Enrollment Period Elapsed: 97.3% • Est. of ORIGINAL 7M CBO QHP Projection: 87.8%

Exchange-Based QHP Projection, 10/1/13 - 3/31/14: 6.54M

(OFF-Exchange QHPs are at least 558K, more likely 4M or more nationally)

That is 12.6 - 16.2 million families insured via the exchanges and expanded Medicare because Democrats overcame the Republican obstructionists and liars and got it done.


Who is sorry now?


yrs,
rubato

[Gob]

US President Barack Obama says six million people have signed up for medical insurance under his healthcare law, meeting the administration's goal.

He announced the figure in a conference call with supporters days before the application period ends for enrolees.

The White House's initial goal was seven million, but this was revised amid last autumn's disastrous launch.

Public support for the law is at its lowest - 26% of Americans back it - found a new Associated Press-GfK poll