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.
