State health insurance enrollment on pace with last year

HARTFORD — Despite a shorter enrollment period, or maybe in spite of that deadline, enrollment in Connecticut’s health insur ance exchange is more than 90,000 with 21 more days to go.

According to Access Health CT, 90,428 individuals have enrolled in a qualified health insurance plan as of Nov. 30.

An estimated 11,749 of those customers were new to the exchange.

Access Health CT CEO James Wadleigh said Friday that they were blown away by the number of new customers.

He said it means that people who may be losing their Medicaid because of income changes are signing up and finding that exchange plans are “not as expensive as they thought.”

He said the Danbury and Stamford locations have had the most foot traffic.

What gives him pause is the 11,055 customers who signed up for plans in 2017 and haven’t enrolled yet.

He said emails and phone calls will be made over the remaining two weeks to that population to remind them to pick a plan and enroll for coverage in 2018 before it’s too late.

Customers have until Dec. 22 to sign up for a plan

on Connecticut’s exchange. The deadline for the federal exchange through HealthCare.gov is Dec. 15.

Enrollment through Healthcare.gov continues to lag.

Two-thirds of the way through enrollment, only 2.8 million people have signed up, according to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

Like always, there is usually a surge in enrollment in the last few weeks, so things could turn around.

Connecticut is one of only a dozen states that set up their own marketplaces; a majority of states are using the federal exchange.

Wadleigh is estimating that enrollment will be around 105,000 to 110,000 individuals this year, which is on par with last year’s enrollment numbers.

Since enrollment is short this year, it’s hard to compare year-over-year numbers. But if that’s what was happening, enrollment would be up around 8 percent already this year.

Wadleigh contributes some of the success to a big decision to get rid of two brick-and-mortar enrollment locations in New Britain and New Haven, and instead open up 10 enrollment locations in libraries and community health centers across the state.

“Foot traffic has been phenomenal,” Wadleigh said.

This story has been modified from its original version. To view the original, visit ctnewsjunkie.com.