Covered California Continues To Surge
At a time when the rollout of the federal health insurance exchange website has been thorny at best and some state websites such as Oregon's have been unmitigated disasters, Covered California continues to rack up new enrollees in commercial health insurance plans.
Through Nov. 30, Covered California has enrolled 109,296 individuals into health insurance plans and completed more than 244,000 applications. Through the application process via the coveredca.com website, 219,639 individuals have been determined to be eligible for coverage.
A large chunk of the enrollees – about 62% – are between the ages of 45 and 64. Altogether, about 86% of those who have enrolled have been eligible for premium subsidies based on income requirements. About 85% have been picking either the more affordable Bronze and Silver plans, although more than two-thirds have gravitated toward the latter, which covers 70% of an enrollee's healthcare costs.
“This has been a phenomenal experience as Californians have expressed in words and action their desire for affordable and quality health insurance coverage,” said Covered California Executive Director Peter V. Lee. “Enrollments and applications are surging, and we at Covered California — and our partners — are stepping up our game to meet the demand.”
Anthem Blue Cross leads in enrollments with just over 27,000, or 28.8% of the total enrollees. Blue Shield of California has enrolled 24,803 and Kaiser Permanente, 23,456.
Molina Healthcare and L.A. Care Health Plan, two Medi-Cal managed care plans that decided to offer commercial coverage through the exchange, have seen minimal enrollments although their premiums have been among the lowest offered in the exchange L.A. Care has enrolled 922 individuals to date, while Molina has enrolled 453.
Slightly more than a quarter of Covered California's enrollees to date have been 34 years of age or under, part of the so-called millenial generation that some health policy experts say is crucial for balancing the risk pool here and in other state health insurance exchanges against older and presumably less healthier enrollees. As much as 40% of the exchange enrollment may have to be younger adults in order to avoid what as known as a “death spiral” – a catastrophic surge in medical costs that would overwhelm insurers and prompt them to withdraw from the exchanges, experts warn.
However, a new study by the Kaiser Family Foundation suggested that the “death spiral” threat may be exaggerated. According to the study, even if only 25% of exchange enrollees are young adults, medical claims may only exceed medical costs by just 2.4%.
