The Washington Post recently reported on somewhat unexpected results of the first month of insurance enrollments through the new state and federal health care exchanges: “a crush of people applying for an expansion of Medicaid and a trickle of sign-ups for private insurance.”
According to the article, in some places as many as nine out of 10 new enrollees enrolled in Medicaid. In response, supporters of the new health insurance law (the Affordable Care Act) have blamed the disproportionate Medicaid enrollment on the website glitches that have plagued the federal and state exchanges since they came online October 1st, and predict that the enrollment disparity will diminish over time. Experts, however, warn that continued low private insurance enrollments could ultimately increase premiums if not enough healthy individuals enroll to offset the number of enrollees with serious health issues.
In Connecticut, the new enrollment numbers in October were more evenly split. According to the Connecticut Mirror, last month, 7,615 people enrolled for coverage through Access Health CT, Connecticut’s new health insurance exchange. Of those enrollees, 3,550 (47%) qualified for Medicaid and 4,065 (53%) selected private health insurance plans.
