Biweekly Enrollment Snapshot

Biweekly Enrollment Snapshot

WEEKS 5 AND 6, NOV 27 – DEC 10, 2016 

Heading into the final days before the December 15 deadline for January 1 coverage, millions of Americans are coming to HealthCare.gov and signing up for Health Insurance Marketplace plans, demonstrating the strong demand for quality, affordable coverage. As of December 10, over 4 million people had selected plans using HealthCare.gov since Open Enrollment began November 1, including over 1.1 million new consumers and 2.9 million renewing their coverage.

Since December 10, sign-up activity has accelerated. With the December 15 deadline for January 1 coverage approaching, the last two days – Monday, December 12 and Tuesday, December 13 – have been two of the biggest days of any Open Enrollment, with more than 700,000 sign-ups.

“Momentum is building,” said Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Burwell.  “As we approach the December 15th deadline for consumers to get coverage that begins January 1st, we’re seeing hundreds of thousands of consumers each day signing up for coverage they want and need. I encourage anyone who needs health insurance for 2017 to join the millions already signed up and visit HealthCare.gov to check out their options by December 15th. Most Marketplace consumers can find plans for less than $75 per month in premiums, and it’s easier than ever to shop and compare your options on HealthCare.gov.”

This report covers the period from November 27 through December 10, 2016. In addition to national and state-by-state data, today’s snapshot is the first this year to include plan selection estimates for top local markets in states using HealthCare.gov.  

As in past years, enrollment weeks are measured Sunday through Saturday. Since Open Enrollment began on a Tuesday this year, the cumulative totals reported in this snapshot reflect two fewer days than last year’s Week 6 snapshot. There were over 250,000 more plan selections during the first 40 days of Open Enrollment this year than last year.

Every two weeks during Open Enrollment, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) will release enrollment snapshots for the HealthCare.gov platform, which is used by the Federally-facilitated Marketplaces and State Partnership Marketplaces, as well as some State-based Marketplaces. These snapshots provide point-in-time estimates of biweekly plan selections, call center activity, and visits to HealthCare.gov or CuidadoDeSalud.gov. The final number of plan selections associated with enrollment activity during a reporting period may change as plan modifications or cancellations occur, such as due to life changes like starting a new job or getting married. In addition, as in previous years, the biweekly snapshot only reports new plan selections, active plan renewals and, starting at the end of December, auto-renewals; it does not report the number of consumers who have paid premiums to effectuate their enrollment.

Later in the Open Enrollment period, HHS will produce more detailed reports that look at plan selections across the Marketplace, including both states using the HealthCare.gov platform and State-based Marketplaces using their own enrollment platforms.

Definitions and details on the data are included in the glossary.

Federal Marketplace Snapshot

HealthCare.gov State-by-State Snapshot

Consumers across the country continued to explore their health insurance options by reaching out to a call center representative at 1-800-318-2596, attending enrollment events in their local communities, or visiting HealthCare.gov or CuidadoDeSalud.gov. Individual plan selections for the states using the HealthCare.gov platform include:

HealthCare.gov Local Area Snapshot

The Week 6 snapshot includes, for the first time this Open Enrollment, a look at plan selection by top Designated Market Areas (DMAs) which are local media markets. This data provides another level of detail to better understand total plan selections within local communities. Some DMAs include one or more counties in a state that is not using the HealthCare.gov platform for 2017. Plan selections for those DMAs only include data for the portion of the DMA that is using the HealthCare.gov platform, so the amounts reported in the snapshot do not represent plan selections for the entire DMA. However, in cases where a DMA includes portions of multiple states but all of those states use the HealthCare.gov platform, the reported amounts reflect the whole DMA. Because not all DMAs are listed in the table, the amounts reported for local markets will not sum to the national total. Later in the Open Enrollment period we will be reporting enrollments for all DMAs.

Glossary

Plan Selections:  The cumulative metric represents the total number of people who have submitted an application and selected a plan, net of any cancellations from a consumer or cancellations from an insurer that have occurred to date. The biweekly metric represents the net change in the number of non-cancelled plan sections over the two-week period covered by the report.

Plan selections will include those consumers who are automatically re-enrolled into a plan, which occurs at the end of December.

To have their coverage effectuated, consumers generally need to pay their first month’s health plan premium. This release does not report the number of effectuated enrollments.

New Consumers: A consumer is considered to be a new consumer if they did not have Marketplace coverage at the start of Open Enrollment on November 1^st, 2016.

Renewing Consumers: A consumer is considered to be a renewing consumer if they had 2016 Marketplace coverage on November 1^st, 2016 at the start of Open Enrollment and either actively select the same plan or a new plan for 2017 or are automatically re-enrolled into a plan, which occurs at the end of December.

Marketplace: Generally, references to the Health Insurance Marketplace in this report refer to 39 states that use the HealthCare.gov platform. The states using the HealthCare.gov platform are Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Nevada, New Mexico, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, West Virginia, Wisconsin, and Wyoming.

HealthCare.gov States: The 39 states that use the HealthCare.gov platform for the 2017 benefit year, including the Federally-facilitated Marketplace, State Partnership Marketplaces and State-based Marketplaces.

Consumers on Applications Submitted:  This includes consumers who are requesting coverage on a completed and submitted application, including an application that is created through the automatic re-enrollment process, which occurs at the end of December, in a state that is using the HealthCare.gov platform. If determined eligible for Marketplace coverage, a new consumer still needs to pick a health plan (i.e., plan selection) and pay their premium to get covered (i.e., effectuated enrollment). Because families can submit a single application, this figure tallies the total number of people requesting coverage on a submitted application (rather than the total number of submitted applications).

Call Center Volume:  The total number of calls received by the call center for the 39 states that use the HealthCare.gov platform over the course of the weeks covered by the snapshot or from the start of Open Enrollment. Calls with Spanish speaking representatives are not included.

Calls with Spanish Speaking Representative:  The total number of calls received by the Federally-facilitated Marketplace call center where consumers chose to speak with a Spanish-speaking representative. These calls are not included within the Call Center Volume metric.

HealthCare.gov or CuidadodeSalud.gov  Users: These user metrics total how many unique users viewed or interacted with HealthCare.gov or CuidadodeSalud.gov, respectively, over the course of a specific date range. For cumulative totals, a separate report is run for the entire Open Enrollment period to minimize users being counted more than once during that longer range of time and to provide a more accurate estimate of unique users. Depending on an individual’s browser settings and browsing habits, a visitor may be counted as a unique user more than once.

Window Shopping HealthCare.gov Users or CuidadoDeSalud.gov Users: These user metrics total how many unique users interacted with the window-shopping tool at HealthCare.gov or CuidadoDeSalud.gov, respectively, over the course of a specific date range. For cumulative totals, a separate report is run for the entire Open Enrollment period to minimize users being counted more than once during that longer range of time and to provide a more accurate estimate of unique users. Depending on an individual’s browser settings and browsing habits, a visitor may be counted as a unique user more than once. Users who window-shopped are also included in the total HealthCare.gov or CuidadoDeSalud.gov user total.

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