A Tale Of Two State Exchanges
By Amy Snow Landa, The Seattle
Times
Oct 18, 2013 - Kaiser Health News
This story was produced in partnership with The Seattle Times
PORTLAND — To get a glimpse of how the two-week-old health-insurance
exchanges are faring under the Affordable Care Act, there may not be a better
place to look than the Pacific Northwest and its striking contrasts.
On the one hand, the Washington state-run exchange, called Washington
Healthplanfinder, is widely perceived to be off to a strong start.
Nearly 25,000 residents have enrolled in health-care coverage through
Healthplanfinder over the exchangefs first two weeks, according to figures
released Monday by the Washington Health Benefit Exchange, which operates the
exchange.
Compare that to Oregon, where state officials acknowledge not a single
resident has been able to enroll through the website of that statefs exchange,
called Cover Oregon, because the site still is not fully functioning.
The state has managed to enroll a sizable number of low-income people into
Medicaid over the past two weeks but has done so outside the exchange.
The contrast puts Washington and Oregon at opposite ends of the spectrum of
how the newly established exchanges are working, as the uninsured and those
seeking individual insurance sign up for 2014 coverage under Obamacare through
March 31.
Only a handful of states, including Washington, have released enrollment
figures to date. Among them are Kentucky, which announced that 8,500 residents
had enrolled in the first week, and Minnesota, which reported this week that
3,700 people had enrolled.
New York said last week that 40,000 residents had completed applications, and
Californiafs exchange reported this week that residents had started nearly
100,000 applications. Neither state has released enrollment figures.
The Obama administration also has not released enrollment figures for the
36 states that are using the federally run website, HealthCare.gov, which
has been plagued with technical glitches.
In Oregon, meanwhile, state officials say it will likely take at least two
more weeks before the website can process enrollments.
The delay is striking given that Oregonfs exchange has received more federal
grant money — more than $300 million — than all but two other states, California
and New York. Washington received $152 million.
Despite the big grant, Oregonfs exchange gis essentially closed at this
point,h said Eric Graham, a partner in Lake Oswego, Ore.-based Montgomery &
Graham, a brokerage with thousands of individual clients and about 1,300
business clients.
All of the firmfs 24 agents and account managers went through training and
testing to become certified to enroll clients directly into the Oregon exchange
but havenft been able to enroll anyone.
gItfs really frustrating,h Graham said. gIt sure started off very positively.
Oregon was considered a model for other states. And to have this happen, it just
boggles the mind.h
Right now, the website only allows residents to browse available plans and
prices. They can enter salary and household information to get an assessment of
whether they may be eligible for Medicaid or if they qualify for financial
assistance to purchase a health plan. But they cannot receive an official
determination, and they cannot enroll.
gWefre hoping that the full system will be up online by the end of the month
for people to enroll on their own if they choose to do so,h said spokeswoman
Ariane Holm.
Oregon residents who want to enroll in a private plan through the exchange
can work with an insurance broker or a certified in-person assister to fill out
an application to be processed later.
Cover Oregon officials say that should still leave plenty of time for Oregon
residents to enroll.
People who are uninsured have until Dec. 15 to sign up for coverage to take
effect Jan. 1; in this first year of Obamacare, the enrollment period will be
open until the end of March, by which time those who donft have insurance could
face a penalty.
One thing going for the statefs effort is a gfast-track enrollmenth drive
outside the exchange to get enrollees in expanded Medicaid coverage. Oregon
officials reported Thursday that 56,000 people — about 10 percent of the statefs
uninsured — have been enrolled through this method using income information from
the statefs food-stamp program to determine eligibility.
Still, the continuing delay in getting Oregonfs website functioning could
become a problem if residents — particularly the young and healthy — begin to
lose interest in signing up for coverage.
One goal of the new exchanges is to attract young and healthy people into the
insurance pool to offset the higher costs of older and sicker people, said
Robert Laszewski, a health-care consultant in Alexandria, Va. gBut if youfre
healthy and think youfre not necessarily going to need health insurance, youfre
not going to put up with this — with wait times and systems down and all this,h
he said.
Cover Oregon officials had anticipated technical challenges when they decided
well before Oct. 1 that they would start with a gsoft launchh of the website,
limiting access to the online enrollment function to agents and brokers and
trained in-person assisters.
But so far, not even brokers and certified assisters have been able to enroll
people on the site.
Two days before the Oct. 1 launch, Cover Oregon officials disabled the
enrollment function because of a high error rate in determining consumersf
eligibility for financial assistance.
The contrast from Oregonfs situation does shine a favorable light on
Washingtonfs use of federal dollars, Laszewski said.
gClearly, the Washington exchange did what everyone expected them to do,h he
said. gThey came up with an efficient exchange that was up and running on Oct.
1.h
To be sure, Washingtonfs Healthplanfinder was not fully functioning on the
launch date and was still sluggish for several days. But it wasnft long before
site users were able to browse for health-plan information, fill in applications
and enroll in plans.
Among the 25,000 who have enrolled, nearly 22,000 signed up for Medicaid
coverage and more than 3,000 enrolled in private health plans through the
exchange, which provides financial assistance to reduce the cost of coverage for
those who qualify.
An additional 37,000 residents have gone through every step of the
application except the final one, which is paying their first monthly premium,
not due until Dec. 23.
Some applicants have more than one person in their household, so the number
of completed applications, without the initial payment, is about 22,000.
So altogether, about 62,000 Washington residents have signed up for coverage
so far through Washington Healthplanfinder, still a small dent in the estimated
1 million who are uninsured.
Exchange officials have estimated that about 130,000 Washington residents
will enroll in coverage through Healthplanfinder by Jan. 1, 2014, and that
280,000 will sign up by Jan. 1, 2015.
gWefre happy where we are,h said Michael Marchand, communications director at
the exchange. gItfs a great start, but there is a lot of time left, so wefll see
what happens.h
© 2013 Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. All rights reserved.