I read in some online publications today that President Obama’s administration finally released some enrollment numbers of citizens enrolling in medical insurance plans for January 2014. I have my own questions about these numbers.
Some of this information is taken from articles across the Web, but most of it is from Ezra Klein’s blog, which is linked here:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2014/01/14/the-death-of-obamacares-death-spiral/
There are 2.2 million Americans that signed up for private insurance. Of these 2.2 million, roughly 25% are the desired age group of 18-34. According to Ezra Klein’s blog, the Obama Administration, along with others, wants 38%.
The next set of numbers show that 55% of the sign ups were between the ages of 45-64.
These numbers don’t include the state exchanges of Minnesota, Oregon and Nevada.
The most popular metallic level plans are the silver level, with 60% of enrollees selecting these.
Most of the people enrolled haven’t paid yet. In my opinion this is a big deal. If you sign up and don’t pay, you don’t have insurance. As of right now these numbers are just citizens that have signed up, not paid.
Lastly, no Medicaid numbers have been released yet. These should come later this month.
A question I have about these numbers, are they reflective of what the insurance companies thought they would get, which in turn directly impacts the premiums that they charge.
Of course there are two sides to each argument, one side stating that a “modest” increase of 2.4% could be in store for next year. The other side states that if more young and healthy individuals don’t sign up, then it could be much higher.
Only time will tell…
Some questions that come to mind –
- How many were they expecting?
- What did each insurance company expect to get?