Healthcare.gov's Good News and Bad News, by the Numbers
Nearly 260,000 Americans enrolled in private health insurance plans through the federal and state-run exchanges in November, according to the latest Obamacare numbers. That brings the total number of enrollments through November 30 up to 364,682. Whether that's good or bad depends on whether you're a glass half-full (that's so much better than October) or a glass half-empty (the Obama administration thought they'd have 500,000 enrollments in October) type of person. And of course, whether you want to repeal and/or defund Obamacare. By the numbers:
For the glass half-full people:
About 258,000 individuals enrolled in November — that's more than double October's 106,000.
The state-run exchanges more than doubled their enrollment numbers, for a total of 227,478 enrollments. That's more proof that, for the most part, the states that were dedicated to making the law work are having more success.
December is looking to be an even better month. New York recently reported that nearly 70,000 individuals bought healthcare. That's up from the 45,000 reported in the November numbers. The state expects to meet its enrollment goal.
About 1.8 million applications were submitted and of those 2.6 million people were found eligible for the Marketplace. (An application can be submitted for a whole family.)
The real bright spot is that 803,000 people were deemed eligible for Medicaid.
Even before Healthcare.gov was deemed "fixed", the exchange had much better numbers — it went from about 27,000 enrollments to 137,000. Here's a chart that shows the dramatic improvement:
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Even Oregon enrolled some people!
For the glass half empty people:
Just kidding, the Oregon exchange still sucks. It enrolled a total of 44 people, which is impressive considering everyone was told to use paper applications. Covered Oregon isn't expected to be functional until next week and only 26,000 of 65,000 paper applications have been processed.
The administration still counts plans selected but not paid for as enrollments. So if people never pay for their plans they won't actually be enrolled.
This isn't very close to 7 million, and the White House is backing away from that magic number. While Michael Hash of the Department of Health and Human Services said they expect to meet seven million, others are less convinced. Now, according to Politico, the administration is focusing on the "mix of healthy to unhealthy" as a measure of the "viability of the markets," as per David Simas, a White House Senior adviser. Basically, no death spiral, no problems.
For the "defund Obamacare" movement:
There are now 364,682 people who'd be really upset to lose their Obamacare insurance.
There are only 364,682 who'd be really upset to lose their Obamacare insurance.
This article was originally published at http://www.thewire.com/politics/2013/12/healthcaregovs-good-news-and-bad-news-numbers/356014/
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