General Discussion

applegrove

(118,703 posts) Mon Jan 13, 2014, 10:46 PM Jan 2014

"Obamacare enrollment healthier, with room to grow: Survey"

Obamacare enrollment healthier, with room to grow: Survey

By: Dan Mangan | Health Care Reporter at CNBC

http://www.cnbc.com/id/101320707

"SNIP.........................................

Chances for keeping insurance premiums down and getting many more people enrolled under new Affordable Care Act policies this year are looking good, according to a new survey.

The survey found that about 1 in 4 adults visited an Obamacare exchange by the end of December. And more significantly, the vast majority of those who visited and are potentially eligible for coverage there—a total of 77 percent of those surveyed—reported being in either excellent, very good or good health, according to a statistical snapshot taken by the Commonwealth Fund.

And they were not disproportionately old as has been the case in the limited demographic data released by the Obamacare health exchanges to date.

In fact, 41 percent of the exchange visitors were 19- to 34-years-old, tracking their share of the general population of people eligible for coverage via the exchanges in either private plans or Medicaid, according to the Commonwealth Fund.

If those trends in health status and age hold up among the people who actually enrolled—and who will ultimately enroll—it increases the likelihood that insurers will not have to raise premium prices excessively next year to compensate for a bad risk pool that comes from having too many sick and old people signed up.

.......................................SNIP"