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When the dust finally settles on the real enrollment numbers - think years, instead of months - they’ll have done better, but that the 7MM’s got a lot of imaginary friends in it is a true thing.</p>
<p>Seen a few depressing news pieces, with attribution, that premiums are due for a somewhat severe upward adjustment. Curious that the insurers seem to have a better handle on the enrollment mix when the administration seems unwilling to admit there might even be a handle. :-S </p>
<p>A million people signed up on the exchanges in the last five days, and also people signed up off the exchanges. People are still signing up in a lot of states. I’m curious how the insurers knew a couple of weeks ago who was going to sign up, and therefore what the premiums were going to be. Anything said before, say, today, about next year’s premiums is bound to be ignoring a lot of new enrollees.</p>
<p>51% of eHealth customers were previously uninsured, says eHealth CEO:
<a href=“As Obamacare arrives, a CEO shows how to do it better - MarketWatch”>As Obamacare arrives, a CEO shows how to do it better - MarketWatch;
<p>Also,
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<p>Remember, off-exchange and on-exchange buyers get put in the same risk pool.</p>
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<p>Guess what. My name isn’t really “Calmom”. “Calmom” is a fake person. And I don’t really look like a Disney space alien either. </p>
<p>That piece of internet myth is based on the assumptions that all twitter lurkers (account-holders that follow but don’t tweet) are “fake”. </p>
<p>And on the assumption that everyone wants everyone else on the planet to be able to easily see who they choose to file. </p>
<p>Because of course there is no person who likes to keep their personal life and business life separate… and certainly no young people who have the idea of having as separate online persona and accounts from the ones they let their parents see. </p>
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<p>Aw, but Stitch is so adorable. (I’m sure you’re just as adorable IRL though) </p>
<p>CF, were you able to find statistics about ended up signing up over the last few days?</p>
<p>I believe I admitted they’d do better than 53%. </p>
<p>People do like to keep their personal and public life separate - multiple email accounts, online names, identities. You’d think there were 6 to 7 hundred million people around, just surfing the web. That’s not even counting the spammers. They number in the billions, it seems.</p>
<p>The common thread here is ‘fake’, at least for the online crowd.</p>
<p>Well, there are services that sell packages of fake followers. It’s cheesy PR used mostly by wanna-be celebrities.</p>
<p>The administration announced in the middle of last week that 6 million people had signed up. And then, by the end of Monday, 7.1 million had signed up. So by subtraction, over a million signed up in the last few days. </p>
<p>And we know that the last million were not the same as the previous six million. They were younger on average. They were probably healthier on average too, because people who needed health care would’ve been likely to sign up earlier to get it. </p>
<p>And, be honest, most of us didn’t think that a million people would sign up in the last few days. So whatever the insurance companies were calculating about next year’s premiums will have to be recalculated in the light of the surprising late surge.</p>
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No resemblance at all to the promotional nature of a lot of the sign-up drives. Nope.</p>
<p>Interesting to see a grad student do a study as to the attrition rate of those kind of enroll’es. </p>
<p>Was that surge really surprising? Maybe, I’m just really cynical but it looked extremely orchestrated I don’t believe for a second that people just randomly gathered at free clinics around the country to stand in line for health insurance on the last day. LOL.</p>
<p>It was surprising to me. I assume it was surprising to the detractors on this thread as well, since I assume you detractors were honest in your predictions that enrollments would fall short of the original goal. </p>
<p>There were enrollment events in the last few days, and I assume the organizers hoped for a big turnout, but hoping for a big turnout is one thing, and expecting iPad-opening-day lines is quite another.</p>
<p>The late surge may very well have been different but I’ve noticed a fair number of fruit bar/hospitality kind of events over the last couple of months.</p>
<p>Good stuff for gathering signatures, maybe even a one time contribution to the cause, but maybe not so much for installment plan payments. We’ll see.</p>
<p>A detractor but I remember making dstark’s day (night?) with a prediction of 5.2 mm signups, CF. </p>
<p>I still believe it’s generous.</p>
<p>CoveredCA announced that they enrolled more than 1.2 million.</p>
<p><a href=“Covered California Announces Enrollment Exceeded Expectations Of 1.2 Million - CBS Los Angeles”>http://losangeles.cbslocal.com/2014/04/03/covered-california-announces-enrollment-exceeded-expectations-of-1-2-million/</a></p>
<p>Catahoula, the process of enrollment requires verification of identity as the first step. It’s possible that there is a small amount of double-counting, in that someone who tried unsuccessfully to enroll earlier might have abandoned their previous application and started over again — but it’s not an easy process to get signed up. </p>
<p>I am not certain how they are counting but it seems certainly possible to have multiple applications for the same people.</p>
<p>We started applications for 10 separate families. The exchange people started over when screens froze, things got stuck at verification and there were some where they simply refused to find the apps and wanted people start anew. One of our visa families had at least 4 separate applications because it took a very long time each time and it would get stuck (think of spending 3-4 hours, getting verified, only to find out that at payment submit time they refused use it and started over).</p>
<p>In the IT world, very easy to count completed apps. Speculate all you want about someone serving coffee. Or the role of advertising in drawing someone’s attention. Happens every day. </p>
<p>Sure, they may shave some off the 7 million (or whatever number one wants to use.) But they aren’t going to shave off enough to prove anything substantial. Calling attention to things like some budding celebrity may have bought followers is a silly proof. Really stretching.</p>
<p>Well, it’s also very easy to count age and verify payment yet these numbers remain a mystery for some reason. Buying Twitter folllowers is SOP in PR but Twitter followers are ultimately irrelevant, anyway.</p>
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<p>As a long standing member of such world, I can assure you the answers can be made as pretty as someone wants it to be or as ugly as someone wants it be and it all depends on which way the requestor wants it.</p>
<p>In the end, the real numbers will be how many paid. If some posts were to be accepted, there are people out there waiting for their January invoice. We may yet have this answer probably in a month or two. I have two families who could only be enrolled for April since 15th deadline had passed and they did not pay a premium yet.</p>
<p>Agree. Also a background. But: the possibility for a snafu is NOT the same as speculating that failure IS in place. or that it is all smoke and mirrors because someone very much wants their own opinion to prevail.</p>