Dive Brief:
- Information released by the US Department of Health and Human Services shows that some conservative states that fought the Affordable Care Act are actually signing up the most enrollees.
- The data, which shows enrollment by ZIP Code for the 37 states that use the HealthCare.gov platform, reveals Florida to have the highest number of people selecting plans or being automatically re-enrolled for 2015. (Data was not included for DC and the 13 states that use state-based marketplaces.)
- ZIP codes with 50 or fewer plan selections were also not included in the report, "to protect individuals' privacy." According to the report, a total of 13,725 ZIP codes were included, and the data accounts for 97% of the total 7.16 million overall plan selections in the 37 states as of January 16, 2015.
Dive Insight:
The apparent acceptance of "Obamacare" in conservative states can be attributed to a few factors. As US News and World Report points out, Florida's decision to forgo Medicaid expansion left those with incomes above the federal poverty line few options—they had to sign up for a private plan to get insurance. This issue was impacted in Florida by the fact that the state has an older population.
In addition, as Kaiser Health News details, Florida's success is due to competition among insurers and to intense and well-coordinated outreach that could serve as a model to other states. Workers use a "heat-map" that shows which areas need to be targeted. Notably, enrollment has seen an uptick in both urban and rural areas.
Issuers have also been active in promoting enrollment. Jon Urbanek, senior vice president of Florida Blue, says their company conducted about 3,000 "town-hall" style meetings. As he told Kaiser Health News, "We knew going in that this was going to be a face-to-face, get in the community type of action to build trust with people."