<p>Maybe nobody collects that information for all fifty states?</p>
<p>I dont know. </p>
<p>Insurance companies dont know how many people they cover? </p>
<p>Frankly, I have never even thought to ask anybody in the insurance industry that question. </p>
<p>Well… It is still 2013… We can send out notices to insurance companies right now. </p>
<p>“Start counting your policyholders.” :)</p>
<p>Insurance companies surely know how many people they cover, but that doesn’t mean anyone aggregates the numbers.</p>
<p>“Much of the challenge stems from the fact there’s no one data source that tracks who is gaining insurance coverage and who has lost, or canceled, their policy. The data that we do have can be difficult to piece together.”</p>
<p>I dont think it has to be done the way it was quoted. </p>
<p>We dont need to know who is cancelling or not cancelling. It is fine if we want that info.</p>
<p>Use aggregate numbers.</p>
<p>Hire some firms.</p>
<p>"Hamm believes the real test won’t be January but rather the end of March, when open enrollment ends.</p>
<p>“Right now its like we’re watching the preview before the real movie,” he says. “And the real movie is going to be the answers to two fundamental questions: How many people enroll by the end of March? And what’s the actual risk pool?”</p>
<p>Without that, he says, its impossible to declare an Obamacare failure or a success."</p>
<p>Yes…Jan isnt going to be key.</p>
<p>So Covered California can trumpet how many people are signing up for exchange plans but can’t tell us how many of them will have paid for their plans. They better figure this out, otherwise their numbers are meaningless.</p>
<p>GP, Covered California is not currently set up to collect or track payments; that part is handled by the insurance companies themselves. Once the plan is selected on the site, the process of enrollment is completed. The insurance companies will notify Covered California in the event of nonpayment, but the deadline for making payment has been extended to January 6. So there would be no reason to expect any reporting as to payment status until enough time has elapsed post-deadline to allow the insurance companies to reconcile books and provide an accounting back to Covered California. </p>
<p>That deadline is ONLY for those who want coverage effective in January – many consumers may not be concerned. Some may have other coverage to tide them over for a few months (such as students who are on college plans) or may be healthier individuals willing to take the risk of going without coverage for the first 3 months of the year, just to save on premium dollars. (Not a particularly smart thing to do, but I can see the logic. The longer open enrollment period for 2013-2014 does allow that option, and it really wouldn’t be a problem for non-emergency procedures or care. ).</p>
<p>I agree Calmom but we should know by May 1, a full month after the end of the open enrollment period, how many of these exchange signups actually paid for their plans. Signup numbers don’t mean much unless the enrollees actually purchase the plans. </p>
<p>I would think Covered Ca will get preliminary data from the insurance companies sometime after Jan 6 to see how many of the 2013 signups actually bought plans. Until we know this and the demographic information regarding these people, the signup numbers Covered Ca is currently trumpeting are only one piece of a multifaceted puzzle.</p>
<p>Just an additional note on the time frame: in California, the last possible date to PAY for a plan selected during open enrollment will be April 25th, for a plan effective May 1st. See <a href=“https://www.coveredca.com/FAQs/Enrollment-and-Payment-FAQs-FINAL.pdf[/url]”>https://www.coveredca.com/FAQs/Enrollment-and-Payment-FAQs-FINAL.pdf</a> for payment dates.</p>
<p>How will payment work for the subsidized plans? Does the insurance co receive the govt subsidy before or after the subscriber pays his share?</p>
<p>You’re all forgetting that the employer exemption expires next year. How many employers will cancel their insurance plans because of the increased costs of ACA compliant plans? Will those people then buy their own coverage? May 1 is an arbitrary cut-off date. Maybe use the first Tuesday in November. :)</p>
<p>GP, the insurance companies are going to know what the percentage of people pay. If the number is 50 percent, I think that info will hit the papers. :)</p>
<p>I am happy to see that people have to pay up in Apr for May coverage. </p>
<p>TatinG, why arent you taking GPs side of the bet?</p>
<p>I haven’t read the thread in awhile. I don’t know what the bet is. I do know that the number of uninsured is fluid, however, and you were forgetting the end of the employer mandate exemption which will boost the number of uninsured. If the employer mandate was not going to be a problem for employers, it would not have been delayed for a year.</p>
<p>TatinG, we arent forgetting. </p>
<p>Are 500,000 people going to get health coverage thru the covered ca exchange? These people must be paid up by May 1.</p>
<p><a href=“https://www.coveredca.com/news/PDFs/CoveredCA-Enrollment_Projections-9-30-13.pdf[/url]”>https://www.coveredca.com/news/PDFs/CoveredCA-Enrollment_Projections-9-30-13.pdf</a></p>
<p>“ Among the individuals who will be eligible for financial assistance through Covered California are 570,000 Californians who are purchasing health insurance on the individual market today. These individuals already see the value of carrying health insurance and will see immediate assistance.”</p>
<p>GP, if there are close to 2,000,000 with individual insurance coverage in Ca and close to 1/3 subsidy eligible, the number in the link is 570,000, how many of the 570,000 will get their insurance thru the exchange and pay?</p>
<p>Has anybody used ehealth to sign up for insurance for 2014?</p>
<p>I wish more people would start using ehealth. Then maybe the stock would go up, and I could sell it. As usual, as soon as I bought the stock, it went down. Of course, as soon as I sold my Apple stock, it went up. I’m getting out of the stock buying business, though perhaps I could continue and provide information on when I’m going to buy/sell, people could do the opposite and make some money.</p>
<p>"I wish more people would start using ehealth. Then maybe the stock would go up, and I could sell it. "</p>
<p>I asked a question earlier whether the rules have changed and whether insurance companies now can directly figure out your subsidies if you file with them. I forget who it was (NJRes?) who mentioned that insurance company told him/her that they can file the paperwork and find out the subsidy and start charging them less.</p>
<p>I had an interesting conversation with my son, one of the “young invincibles”. I asked him what he would do about health insurance if he wasn’t covered under our plan, would he get it.</p>
<p>He told me that he would get catastrophic insurance, because that’s actually what insurance is for anyways, not to cover every little thing. His example was, “You don’t buy auto insurance to put gas in your car, do you?” Well, no.</p>
<p>When I countered with the fact that he really couldn’t buy catastrophic insurance in his situation, the ACA would disallow that, now what would he do?</p>
<p>He said he’d never buy from the exchange, as it is a terrible deal, unless you were getting a subsidy…which he wouldn’t. And that he would always have a job that provided health insurance (even if the insurance wasn’t that great). To which I countered that you don’t know for sure if the job will always provide, many businesses will be dumping their insurance.</p>
<p>I suppose what I really got out of this is that being uninsured isn’t an option for him. Though he hasn’t had any significant medical issues, going uninsured isn’t something he’d consider, yet getting the cheapest policy would be desirable. Makes me wonder if young people are really going to go without insurance, or if in the end many of them will find a way to get it, though perhaps not off the exchange.</p>
<p>“I asked a question earlier whether the rules have changed and whether insurance companies now can directly figure out your subsidies if you file with them. I forget who it was (NJRes?) who mentioned that insurance company told him/her that they can file the paperwork and find out the subsidy and start charging them less”</p>
<p>That seems like the only rational way for people to be able to get things going. If they’re still having problems with the website, how can they otherwise sign up in time?</p>