More Signs That Obamacare Exchange Enrollment Is Dropping

There are now multiple
indicators that Obamacare enrollment may be lower than reported by
the administration—and dropping in the “off season” between sign-up
periods. The latest comes from Florida, where June enrollment in
private plans through the federally run insurance exchange in the
state is about 760,000—or about 220,000-persons lower than the
980,000 total
reported by the administration following the end of open
enrollment, according to an official with the Florida Office of
Insurance Regulation.

If that figure,
reported last week by the South Florida Business
Journal, is correct, it represents a 22 percent decline from
the total reported by the administration’s Department of Health and
Human Services in April. A separate report today indicates that the
decline is just 120,000, to about 866,000, but that refers to
“individual plans under the Affordable Care Act,” which may include
Obamacare-compliant plans not purchased on the exchange.

Either way, it’s a big—perhaps very big—drop from the
administration’s headline number. And it’s not the only figure
we’ve seen indicating that the actual numbers are quite a bit lower
than the administration’s official tallies.

Recall that the administration’s enrollment numbers are based on
people who signed-up for coverage, not steady, paying customers.
Not all of them were going to convert. The question was how many
would decline to pay at all, or drop out of coverage soon after
making an initial premium payment.

For one of the nation’s largest health insurers, the decline
appears to have been pretty steep. Aetna’s 720,000 sign-ups

turned into just 600,000 paying customers by June, according to
an August Investor’s Business Daily report. The company expects
paid enrollment to drop down to close to 500,000 later this year—a
roughly 30 percent decline.

The same IBD report noted that the official enrollment tally in
Washington state dropped from 164,062 in May to 156,155 in
June.

What’s the overall trend here? It’s impossible to say. The
administration, which released monthly reports on sign-ups
throughout the health law’s first open enrollment period, stopped
releasing those reports, and now says it doesn’t know if or when
the reports will continue, or, if they do, what information they
might include.

The best indication we’ve seen so far on overall activity on the
exchanges following the end of open enrollment this year comes from
Pro Publica, which in July reported unexpectedly high
activity—including new sign-ups, dropped plans, and other changes
to enrollment status—on the exchanges. No exact counts were
provided, but less than half of the activity came from new
enrollments, according to an industry source.

All of which suggests, but does not definitively confirm, that
enrollment on the exchanges may not be holding up between sign-up
periods. The administration has always made it hard to know exactly
how many people were enrolled under the law, thanks to its
imprecise sign-ups metric. But those reports at least provided a
rough sense of what was happening within the exchanges. Now,
without regular updates, we don’t even have that. Administration
officials should continue to provide monthly reports and
state-by-state breakdowns, as well as the paid enrollment totals
that have never been provided. Until it does, it’s reasonable to
assume that whatever is happening with enrollment, they don’t want
anyone to know.