ACAsignups.net has some news on enrollment for January 2014:
A total of 3,299,492 had enrolled in Obamacare plans as of Feb. 1, according to HHS.
Damn. I was off by 0.017%. :)
More importantly the age mix is starting to normalize as younger adults are entering the risk pool.
In January, 27 percent of those who selected plans in the Federally-facilitated Marketplace are between the ages of 18 and 34, a three percentage point increase over the figure reported for the previous three month period. Young adult enrollment grew by 65 percent in January, from 489,460 at the end of December to 807,515 as of Feb. 1, while all other age groups combined grew by 55 percent.
81 percent of young adults ages 18 to 34 selected plans at the Silver metal level or higher (Silver, Gold and Platinum plans).
The Massachusetts experience was that younger and healthier people waited. The age distribution got younger each month the deadline got closer. And shockingly, a program that is a a kissing cousin of the Massachusetts program design is experiencing similar growth patterns.
rikyrah
Just imagine how it would be if the FIVE MILLION cut off from Medicaid expansion were also on board.
Comrade Jake
I wonder what McMegan thinks about all this.
Baud
That’s horrible news for January 2015. Good news for January 2014, however.
Cervantes
Richard, have you seen successful (or at least, good) efforts to let people (or voters) know how the new system is doing? Everyone has heard or been fed a lot of “bad news” — are they hearing the good?
Once it’s clear that the thing is working, marketing becomes important.
(Thanks.)
Mike in NC
Here the Koch brothers’ “Americans for Prosperity” front group has been running ads attacking Senator Hagan (DINO-NC) with their laughable “Obamacare is a disaster” talking points. Hopefully they’ll waste $100M in these spots over the next 10 months as millions more people sign up.
MikeJ
@Comrade Jake:
She wrote an entire book on how failure is good. I think it was about her political writing.
jl
This is good news. Thanks for the link. Most complete story I’ve seen so far (though seems like some copy editing problems at CNBC, but that’s another issue).
Might as well forge ahead and keep pestering RM about the network squabbles I hear about in the news. Does the MA experience produce any evidence that addresses that problem? Which brings to mind RMs post about possible rate shock next. Does MA have any lessone for that prospect?
andy
Goddamn but the thread on the other side of that CNBC link is a sewer. Kind of amazing though. They see themselves as lords of creation, but they lack guts enough to do what any relatively bright person with an internet connection and five minutes could do, which is to see the truth about how health care is paid for on the rest of the planet. You have to be fucking stupid to turn your back on those kinds of savings.
Or it could be that they do know, but their hatred of anyone not them and their dogmatic faith in the “free market” blinds them to any and all possibilities.
Of course, the irony here is that exactly zero countries use the “free market” for health care and they know that too, though the filth need to be pinned down and trapped before they’ll admit it.
Cervantes
@andy:
I think that’s right. Other countries may do things differently but the fact is, they are other, which gives us an excuse to ignore any useful evidence they may offer. Why ignore such evidence? Because doing so lets us pretend that the solution we want is best. And why do we want the solution we want? Partly because it’s ideologically correct, but more because it allows us to ignore the needs of those we have to ignore. And why do we have to ignore them and their needs? Because thinking about them is … unbearable.
(PS: Thanks for your comment. I like the way it is both succinct and comprehensive.)
Cermet
Typical failure by a Government program – that is, people are helped; society becomes more fair; life is better for many poor; and a Black guy did it all; of course the rightwing loons freak’s out and the 0.01% are in terror that poor whites will finally begin to realize that their fellow poor (of any color) are not their enemies but rather the 0.01% are; this will lead to many of the white poor to slowly being to vote in their own interest and not the 0.01%. In the next five years gun control will be secretly supported by the 0.01% … the police state will only get stronger, more rights removed and NSA will have more power – the 0.01% are shitting themselves.
Richard Mayhew
@jl: I have a post on Seattle marinating… mainly stable suboptimal equilibrium and a la carte contracting
Mustang Bobby
@Mike in NC: I’m getting the same ads here in South Florida from AFP aimed at Rep. Joe Garcia (D). It’s starts off quoting Obama’s “if you like your health insurance you can keep your health insurance” and notes that PolitiFact (!) called it “The Lie of the Year,” and then proceeds to lie like a cheap toupee about how “millions of Floridians are losing out on Medicare,” etc. etc. Last night the ad was bookended by two health insurance ads — one from Cigna, the other from Blue Cross — touting their benefits as part of Obamacare.
StringOnAStick
@Mustang Bobby: I love how the health insurance ads bookended the Koch-crap. I don’t have network TV, so I haven’t seen that here, though the insurance companies are buying space on Hulu plus.
I love seeing these good numbers, and that things are proceeding along the path that was blazed by MA.
Betsy
@andy: no no, there is always Somalia and the Sudan