One of the big remaining
questions about Obamacare sign up data is how many, out of the 8
million people the administration says have signed up for coverage,
have actually paid their first month’s premium. It’s an important
question, because people who haven’t paid aren’t enrolled.
Non-payment is virtually certain to reduce the administration’s
headline enrollment figure somewhat.
House Republicans have asked administration officials for this
information, but they’ve generally been met with a shrug, and some
deflection. The White House says it doesn’t have that information
right now.
Insurers do. Maybe you could ask them?
Republicans on the House Energy & Commerce Committee decided
to take the White House up on the idea. The Committee sent letters
to all the insurers operating in the federal health exchange, which
covers 36 states, and asked for some very specific information. How
many people have paid their first month’s premium? How many people
have not? What age groups do the people who have paid fall into?
You can read a complete copy of the letter
here.
Last night, the Committee
released its findings. Obamacare’s official open enrollment
period ended March 31, and as of April 15, the Committee reports,
insurers say that only 67 percent of sign-ups have actually paid.
And of those who have paid, only 25 percent are the critical “young
and healthy” cohort between the ages of 18 and 34.
That really doesn’t look great for the administration. If only
67 percent of the 8 million sign-ups have paid, then that reduces
total enrollment down to just over 5 million. And since the
administration has stressed that it’s important to have a healthy
demographic mix—ideally about 39 percent of enrollees should be
between the ages of 18 and 34—the 25 percent figure doesn’t look so
great either.
But just as with the administration’s evasive Obamacare
reporting, the Committee figures don’t tell the entire story
either. For one thing, they only look at enrollment in the federal
exchange. That leaves out high participation states like California
and New York that ran their own exchanges.
For another, more important thing, April 15 is just too early to
measure anything close to a final payment rate. A huge portion of
Obamacare exchange sign ups came in the last few days of open
enrollment, for coverage that doesn’t begin until the first day of
May. More people signed up later in the month, in the law’s special
open enrollment period, and in some cases their coverage won’t
start until June. Since the first payments aren’t due until the
first day coverage starts, or even as long as 10 days after, that
means that lots of people who have signed up still have time to
pay. The deadline hasn’t arrived yet. And one thing the end of
March sign up spike revealed is that when it comes to health
insurance under Obamacare, lots of people wait until the very last
minute to take action.
In addition, as The New Republic’s Jonathan Cohn
notes, there are other hints that the payment rate may be
higher, or could get there by the time the deadline arrives.
Yesterday, for example, health insurer Wellpoint told investors
that the payment rate was about 90 percent. Officials in California
have said their payment rate is 85 percent. The head of America’s
Health Insurance Plans, the big health insurance trade group, has
said that about 85 percent have paid. And in responding to the
Committee, insurers
stressed that the information they were providing was not
final, and that there were grace periods for many new sign-ups.
Republicans on the Committee are aware that the information they
have so far is incomplete, and they are going to follow up with
insurers toward the end of May. So we’ll get more
information—eventually. But it’s going to take time. The
administration could have headed off a lot of this sort of
discussion by being more transparent from the start, releasing
updates about payment rates, along with sign ups and demographics,
and context about deadlines as well. Instead, they stonewalled and
deflected. Which is how we ended with a Republican Committee trying
to get this information themselves, and a report that at most
suggests an eventual possibility of significant non-payment
problems, but doesn’t demonstrate much of anything right now. For
the time being, then, we’re left right back where we started, with
no solid, comprehensive information to rely on about how many sign
ups have paid.
from Hit & Run http://ift.tt/1jloNc8
via IFTTT