Enrollment Data – The Health Care Blog

Early ACA Data Shows No Wave of Sick Patients

May 19, 2014• 29

By JOSH GRAY & IYUE SUNG

Since launching ACAView, our joint initiative between the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) and athenahealth, in early April, open enrollment under the Affordable Care Act (ACA) has closed for 2014 and The White House has issued final numbers: eight million people enrolled through the marketplace and five million outside the marketplace. Add another three million enrolled in Medicaid or the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) and the total number of people enrolled under the ACA’s individual mandate is close to 16 million.

Since some of these enrollees had previous forms of insurance coverage, it is important to estimate overall reductions in the number of uninsured. RAND estimates that 9.3 million more Americans have insurance in Q1 of 2014, compared to Q3 of 2013, but these figures exclude the surge of enrollments in the last half of March. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates 12 million net newly insured people through either the marketplace or Medicaid (including 1 million who lost insurance), but these estimates exclude enrollments outside the marketplace.

In short, “newly insured” and “enrollment numbers” are counted in different ways and can be confusing. But let’s conservatively assume that the number of net new insured individuals is roughly nine million, or 2.8% of the population. Are these new beneficiaries having a measurable impact on medical practices?Continue reading…

RAND: Net Gain of 9.3 Million American Adults with Health Insurance

Apr 8, 2014• 14

By Katherine Grace Carman & Christine Eibner

Using a survey fielded by the RAND American Life Panel, we estimate a net gain of 9.3 million in the number of American adults with health insurance coverage from September 2013 to mid-March 2014.

The survey, drawn from a small but nationally representative sample, indicates that this significant uptick in insurance coverage has come not only from enrollment in the new marketplaces established under the Affordable Care Act (ACA), but also from new enrollment in employer coverage and Medicaid.

Put another way, the survey estimates that the share of uninsured American adults has dropped over the measured period from 20.5 percent to 15.8 percent. Among those gaining coverage, most enrolled through employer-sponsored coverage or Medicaid.

Although a total of 3.9 million people enrolled in marketplace plans, only 1.4 million of these individuals were previously uninsured. Our marketplace enrollment numbers are lower than those reported by the federal government at least in part because our data do not fully capture the surge in enrollment that occurred in late March 2014.

Using the RAND American Life Panel, a nationally representative panel of individuals who regularly participate in surveys, we have conducted monthly surveys since November 2013 about insurance choices and public opinion. This particular survey work—which is ongoing—is known as the RAND Health Reform Opinion Study(RHROS).

We match these data with data collected in September 2013 about insurance choices. The results presented here are based on 2,425 adults between the ages of 18 and 64 who responded in both March 2014 and September 2013.

People shift from one type of health insurance to another for a number of reasons, such as job changes or marital status changes. Our survey work can’t say for certain which of these shifts are due to the ACA and which are due to other factors, but we can draw some limited conclusions.

We Should Be Getting More Data On The Affordable Care Act

Dec 16, 2013• 4

By SETH J. CHANDLER

The Obama administration released critical data last week on the aggregate levels of enrollment in the various individual Exchanges. Most of the journalistic and blogospheric effort in the aftermath has been in trending: do these numbers portend a massive leap forward in Exchange enrollment such that there can be some confidence that the Affordable Care Act will in fact work?

Might this alternatively be some sort of temporary surge that is both too little and too late? All of this analysis is completely fine; I’ve engaged in it myself. But there are other issues that should be examined.

Here are five questions, mostly about data, I’d like to see other journalists or bloggers start to pursue. I’m doing some of it myself, but I would love company.

1. What is the distribution of enrollment among the various metal tiers?

If a lot of people are purchasing the gold and platinum plans, that is a sign that the people signing up have poor health and do not want to pay higher deductibles. This is particularly true if the same pattern exists among the enrollees receiving income-based subsidies: they, after all, are mostly purchasing gold and platinum because they need it, not because it easily accommodates their budget. If, on the other hand, the distribution is weighted towards the bronze and silver plans, that is some evidence that the people signing up may not be coming as disproportionately from the low or middle expense range.

Unless one’s funds are very limited, it does not make sense for someone who knows they will have high medical expenses to purchase a bronze plan. Disproportionate purchase of gold and platinum policies heightens the potential for adverse selection problems to the extent insurers believed the federal government’s models, which assumed only mild “induced demand” for such policies.

Journalists should also continue pressing at the state and federal level for information on age distribution of enrollees; I can see no legitimate reason to withhold it.