<p>“Lee also noted that of those enrolled through Jan. 31, 626,210 are eligible for subsidies, and insurance companies are reporting that 80 percent of all enrollees have paid their first month’s premium.”</p>
<p>100,000 signups the first half of Feb.
Latinos are starting to sign up.</p>
<p>Medicaid numbers are Huge.</p>
<p>Additionally, 877,000 applicants were determined to be likely eligible for Medi-Cal coverage. DHCS also transitioned 652,000 individuals into the Medi-Cal program from the state’s Low Income Health Program. Automated enrollment allowed county human services agencies to enroll 106,000 individuals into Medi-Cal coverage, and another 65,000 were enrolled through the Express Lane program.</p>
<p>“This continued high interest in quality coverage from our Medi-Cal managed care plans is very encouraging,” said Toby Douglas, director of DHCS noting that approximately 1.5 million additional Californians have enrolled or been found likely eligible for Medi-Cal since October. “These innovative ways of getting so many additional people into coverage moves us that much closer to realizing the department’s vision of improving the health of all Californians.”</p>
<p>We were supposed to get off exchange numbers…but I guess not. Off exchange numbers would have given us a good picture how many people are newly insured.</p>
<p>"Lee said 100,000 more signups for health care were completed through the first half of this month, bringing the overall total of Covered California participants to 828,638 through Feb. 14.</p>
<p>He said the state was making inroads in drawing young adults and Latinos into the program. Roughly 26% of enrollees through Jan. 31 were between the ages of 18 and 34, up from 21% at the end of December. Getting young adults signed up is considered crucial for the success of the program since they are needed to spread out the risk pool.</p>
<p>A January surge in Latino enrollment brought that population’s share of signups to 21.4%, up from 18% for the first three months of the program, from Oct. 1 to Dec. 31.</p>
<p>Lee said there are a significant number of consumers who aren’t eligible for government subsidies and are signing up for coverage via private exchanges. That makes it difficult to get a handle on how many previously uninsured individuals are getting health coverage, but he contends the “vast majority” of Covered California enrollees had no insurance before."</p>
<p>Here is a toast to romani, you and me… We didnt believe the bs. :)</p>
<p>The Calif numbers are so good. Peter Lee said the vast majority of exchange sign ups are newly insured. Well…we have over 800,000 sign ups already. We should hit 1.2 to 1.3 million sign ups in California.</p>
<p>I am a little tired of being so conservative. Time to be realistic. :)</p>
<p>If Peter Lee is correct, maybe we have 500,000 newly insured now… We could hit 900,000 to 1,000,000 newly private insurance insured people in Cal. That is just private insurance. Then we have medicaid where sign ups are increasing dramatically. </p>
<p>And like you said, the young are starting to sign up.</p>
<p>Looks like from the Cal numbers we are going to have somewhere between 4.5 and 6.67 million newly insured people nationally. We have a chance to make the 6 million target.</p>
<p>California has been around 20 percent of sign ups. California has closer to 15 percent of the uninsured so that is where I am getting the national sign up projections.</p>
<p>California, New York, Florida, and Texas are key. California and New York are doing great. Florida is coming on…</p>
<p>The problem of exactly what buying Covered California gets you - network width wise- has been raised before and I’m hoping these are going to be rare, but…</p>
<p>I declined the bet, as you probably recall.</p>
<p>The subject’s premiums and if there’s evidence your dollar isn’t really buying what you think it is, how long will it take for the market to correct the discrepancy? </p>
<p>There’s a difference between not being able to find any doctor to care for a person, and not being able to use the doctor one wishes one could use. It’s unclear which is the case in the article catahoula cites. </p>
<p>And there is also a difference between back surgery and surgery that is useful, in general. Back surgery is way overused. But we have no idea about this particular case.</p>
<p>Whether it’s back or ingrown toenail surgery isn’t the problem. It’s that Covered California’s network list looks squirrely. A cynic might suspect the product they sold did so well because they priced it out of relation to it’s (perceived) value. Kind of like selling 10 cent on the dollar debt to people who thought they were getting something more like .50. </p>
<p>Saying they’ll be surprised when they’re left holding the bag leaves out so much nuance as to what redress they’ll clamor for.:)</p>
<p>I’m suggesting consumer dissatisfaction when they find out how narrow the networks actually are. Consumers ignorant as they might be, generally don’t forgive fine print, typo’s, or finding out they didn’t really get a great deal. </p>
<p>Even if they’re not using the insurance, they may very well wonder exactly what will happen when they try.</p>
<p>CF, it is a good day today. In California, that potemtial premium increase due to the healthy not signing up is decreasing every day. From here on out, that potential increase is going to decrease. May even become a negative number.
The network issue will work itself out. There are going to be lots of contract negotiations between insurance
companies and providers this year. As the individual market expands it will
become harder to ignore that market . </p>
<p>Wellpoint has priced for a population that msy be unhealthier than it looks like it is going to be. So there shouldnt be rate pressures there.</p>
<p>Kaiser has been extremely cautious in the setting of their premiums. Right now, the sign ups at Kaiser are running older. That should change and because kaiser did not price their policies aggressively, rate presuure may not develop.</p>
<p>Health Net is happy.
Dont know about Blue Shield.
The increase in medicaid enrollments is a money maker for these companies.</p>
<p>dstark, you’re trying too hard. Don’t worry you are not going to be cut from the Obamacare cheerleading team. Citing self-congratulatory press releases from Covered Ca. as the authoritative source of objective information regarding the success of this law is a joke. </p>
<p>Catahoula is right about the problem with networks. But who cares as long as we sign up as many people as possible using taxpayer subsidies.</p>
