In Brief: Covered California Has 2 Million Enrollees To Date; Kaiser Links HIV To Higher Cancer Rates

Covered California Says 2 Million Have Enrolled Through Exchange

The Covered California health insurance exchange has reported that more than 2 million state residents have enrolled since 2013.

Of those enrollees, 85% continue to be insured through Covered California, whose current enrollment is just over 1.3 million – slightly above its projections for the 2014-15 fiscal year. About half of those enrollees are in “Silver” plans, which is the middle level of coverage. Bronze-level plans are the second-most popular, often chosen by enrollees with higher incomes.

The vast majority of enrollees -- 90% -- receive some form of premium subsidy under the federal Affordable Care Act (ACA). At $436 a month, the average subsidy cuts a consumer’s out-of-pocket premium by 70% on average. 

And despite the fact that there has been churn through the exchange, a survey by Covered California has concluded that most who exit their exchange-based coverage obtain health insurance from another source, either an employer (44%) or the Medi-Cal (16%) or other programs (40%).

“The data reveal that Covered California is not an end point for every consumer. Rather, it is part of their ongoing journey of ensuring they have health insurance, often moving from one source of coverage to another,” said Covered California Executive Director Peter V. Lee. “Covered California is serving as a vital part of the new health insurance landscape in our state.”

Kaiser Links HIV With Higher Cancer Rates

A new study by researchers with Kaiser Permanente has concluded that patients who test HIV positive have a higher risk for developing cancer as a result of their infection.

Kaiser compared the long-term health of more than 283,000 adults with and without HIV between 1996 and 2009. Data was supplied by the North American Cohort Collaboration on Research and Design, with funding provided by the National Institutes of Health. Researchers with UC San Francisco and Johns Hopkins also worked on the study.

According to its findings, patients with HIV were more likely to develop colorectal cancer between the ages of 50 and 75 than the population as a whole. They also were more likely to develop lung cancer, but smoking rates among the HIV population were much higher as well.

“In the era before antiretroviral therapy, people who were infected with HIV were dying of AIDS. Now that use of this therapy is greatly increasing the lifespan of HIV-infected patients, their risk of developing other diseases, such as cancer, has increased,” said lead Michael J. Silverberg, a Kaiser research scientist and lead author of the study. “These patients have a higher burden of cancer compared with the general population due to impaired immune function and chronic inflammation, as well as a higher prevalence of risk factors including smoking and viral co-infections.” 

The study suggested that those with HIV would benefit from being vaccinated against the HPV virus, as well as taking statins, which although they fight cholesterol can also reduce inflammation in the body.