The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation has released the first monthly report on enrollment in the health insurance marketplaces established by the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. During this initial monthly reporting period, 106,185 individuals selected plans from the marketplaces, and another 975,407 applied and received an eligibility determination, but have not yet selected a plan. An additional 396,261 have been determined or assessed eligible for Medicaid or the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP). Given the well-publicized challenges with the federal marketplace enrollment website, these numbers are clearly lowered than expected.
Of the people who have selected a plan, 79,391 (74.8 percent) enrolled though state-based marketplaces, while the other 26,794 people (25.2 percent) enrolled through the federally facilitated marketplace. Of the individuals who have been assessed or determined eligible for Medicaid or CHIP, state-based marketplaces accounted for 212,865 (53.7 percent) of those determinations, while the federally facilitated marketplace accounted for 183,396 (46.3 percent) of them. These numbers are even more disappointing for the federal government effort.
The good news is that there remains a high level of interest and engagement on the federal and state marketplaces: there have been an estimated 26,876,527 visitors on the state-based marketplace and federally-facilitated marketplace websites. In addition, there have also been an estimated 3,158,436 calls to the state-based marketplace and federally-facilitated marketplace call centers.
Ignatius Bau 