Even as I'm typing this, Democratic (!) Kansas Governor Laura Kelly and Republican legislative leaders are holding a press conference to announce an agreement to finally expand Medicaid under the ACA:

TOPEKA, Kan. (KWCH) Gov. Laura Kelly and Republican leadership announce an agreement on Medicaid expansion in Kansas.

During a press conference on Thursday, the governor said the program would be funded by the hospital administrative fee. At this time, it's unknown if that fee would be passed on to patients.

Kelly said the hospitals have endorsed the program.

Kansas Senate GOP Majority Leader Jim Denning said the bill would be pre-filed on Thursday with 22 co-sponsors.

If passed in the Kansas Senate and House, the full expansion would go into effect no later than Jan. 1.

(Obviously that's January 1st of 2021 at this point, of course)

Here's some live tweeting of the event by a Kansas-based political reporter:

Earlier today, CMS quietly issued the FINAL 2020 Open Enrollment Period HealthCare.Gov "Snapshot Report":

Final Snapshot: Nov 1-Dec 21

Approximately 8.3 million people selected or were automatically re-enrolled in plans using the HealthCare.gov platform during the 2020 open enrollment period.

These snapshots provide point-in-time estimates of weekly plan selections, call center activity and visits to HealthCare.gov or CuidadoDeSalud.gov. The final snapshot reports new plan selections, active plan renewals and automatic enrollments. It does not report the number of consumers who paid premiums to effectuate their enrollment.

As we do each year, CMS also plans to release a detailed 2020 final enrollment report in March, including final plan selection data from State-based Exchanges that do not use the HealthCare.gov platform.

I just received the following 2020 Open Enrollment report from the Massachusetts Health Connector (via email, no link):

Here are numbers as of yesterday:

• We have 290,769 members enrolled in January coverage
• We have 4,444 members enrolled in February or March coverage
• We have 5,270 plans selected (1st premium not paid yet)
• That’s a total of 300,483 people
• We have 41,477 new enrollments.

I wish every ACA exchange would break out their numbers this way. Simple and to the point, but also with relevant details...not only "renewals vs. new" but also how many are enrolled for January vs. February or March coverage and even how many have/haven't paid yet! The last is a bit unfair since Massachusetts is one of only two states, I believe, which actually handle premium payments (Rhode Island does as well...Washington State used to but doesn't anymore).

This Just In via email...

Your Health Idaho enrolls 89,000 Idahoans for 2020 health insurance coverage

• Idaho exchange sees increase in new customers as overall enrollments decline amid Medicaid expansion

BOISE, Idaho – More than 89,000 Idahoans signed up for 2020 health insurance coverage through the state insurance exchange, Your Health Idaho, during open enrollment which ended Dec. 16, 2019.

Enrollments are down approximately 14,000 from the same time last year. This decline is largely due to Medicaid expansion and was expected by the exchange. Your Health Idaho originally estimated that around 18,000 individuals would move from the exchange to Medicaid under the newly expanded program. 

Maine Governor Janet Mills had already announced her intentions regarding moving Maine to a state-based ACA exchange last fall, but now she and state legislative leaders are making it official with the rollout of a new bill...but they're including several other important improvements as well, and I'm mostly cheering all of these, although the logic is a bit confusing on a couple of points:

Mills, Jackson & Gideon Announce Bill to Improve Health Insurance for Maine People and Small Businesses

Augusta, MAINE – Governor Janet Mills, Senate President Troy Jackson, and Speaker of the House Sara Gideon today announced legislation to improve private health insurance for Maine people and small businesses. LD 2007, The Made for Maine Health Coverage Act, would make some of the most common medical visits free or less costly, simplify shopping for a plan, leverage federal funds to help make premiums more affordable for small businesses, and put Maine in the driver’s seat to ensure that all Maine people have clear choices for their coverage.

DISCLAIMER: HealthSherpa has a banner ad placement agreement with ACASignups.net.

As regular readers know, for the past two Open Enrollment Periods, I've had a banner ad agreement with HealthSherpa, a 3rd-party Web Broker which enrolls people in ACA exchange policies. It's important to understand that unlike some other web brokers which sell ACA policies alongside non-ACA compliant plans, I only entered into this agreement with HS because they only offer on-exchange ACA-compliant policies. And no, I'm not being paid extra for this blog post; I don't work that way.

Having said that, there's no denying that their press release today is intriguing and an important look at the public/private status of the ACA:

HealthSherpa enrolls over 1 million Americans during Open Enrollment Period

I don't normally post blog entries about the occasional Twitter flare-ups I get into with die-hard Medicare for All supporters, but this one strikes me as being especially noteworthy for several reasons.

David Klion is the News Editor at JewishCurrents and a writer for The Nation and The New Republic. As you can imagine, he's a pretty left-wing/progressive kind of guy, and a devout Bernie Sanders supporter. He has a verified account (as I do) and has about 55,000 Twitter followers (compared to my 35,000, FWIW). In other words, both of us have small but respectable followings on social media and are what the powers that be would likely consider "low-level" (?) Twitter influencers.

He and I have followed each other on Twitter for several years. We don't directly talk to each other very often, however.

Anyway, about an hour ago, Klion posted a thread with an admittedly depressing and all-too-common Consumer Hell story about his health insurance woes. I'm reposting the whole thing here; it is indeed an indictment of our current system. I've cleaned up the formatting for readability:

Just another quick update from AccessHealthCT:

As of today, their press release page states the following:

Stats as of December 20, 2019:

Qualified Health Plans (QHP):

• Net Total QHP Enrollment: 104,799
• 2020 OE Acquisition Summary: 22,026

...Medicaid: Completed applications/redeterminations processed through the integrated eligibility system: 44,950

That's as of today (?). They'll have to have added another 6,267 people to beat last year's total of 111,066.

A new, if not surprising, development in the Republican Party's absurd "Texas Fold'em" lawsuit against the ACA:

Attorney General Becerra Leads Coalition Seeking Supreme Court Review of ACA Repeal Case

Friday, January 3, 2020

SACRAMENTO – California Attorney General Xavier Becerra today, leading a coalition of 20 states and D.C., filed a petition to the U.S. Supreme Court seeking review of the Fifth Circuit’s recent decision in Texas v. U.S. The decision held the individual mandate of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) unconstitutional and called into question whether the remaining provisions of the ACA could still stand, including those that protect and provide coverage to Americans with pre-existing conditions. Because this decision causes uncertainty that may harm the health of millions of Americans, as well as doctors, clinics, patients, and the healthcare market, Attorney General Becerra and his coalition are petitioning the Supreme Court to take up the case and resolve it before the end of the Court’s current term in June.  

Some of you may have noticed that I haven't really posted much the past week or so. Part of it is because my whole family has been sick (nasty flu going around); part is because of the holidays, of course; and part is because I've been working on a couple of special projects.

One of those projects happened to require that I track down the official Twitter handles of every single member of the U.S. House of Representatives...all 431* of them. While I was at it, I also decided to compile some other key demographic information, such as gender, year of birth and so forth.

*(there's currently 4 vacancies)

You might think this would be easy enough to get ahold of, and most of it is...but the Twitter handles were tricky. There's several online lists already, but most of them seem to be incomplete, outdated, or include their personal handles instead of their official Congressional ones. I've gone through one by one and confirmed all 431 current members. In a few cases I did have to use their personal handles because they don't have an official one (and in a couple of cases, they appear to be one and the same).