Federal Exchanges Won’t Transfer Medicaid Applications Until Nov. 1

On Tuesday, CMS said that technical difficulties will preclude the federally run exchange from transferring Medicaid applications to state agencies until Nov. 1, Modern Healthcare reports.

According to Modern Healthcare, the problem could affect millions of U.S. residents who are newly eligible under the Affordable Care Act's Medicaid expansion.

However, CMS said that the problem would not affect people's ability to enroll in Medicaid or cause a delay in coverage, which will take effect Jan. 1, 2014 (Johnson, Modern Healthcare, 10/15).

State Exchanges See Strong Interest From Young Adults

In related news, several state exchanges have reported robust application numbers from young adults, Modern Healthcare reports.

For example, the Maryland Health Connection said that the most common age group among its initial 25,000 verified accounts was 25 to 29 years old and that roughly 36% of those finalized accounts were created by people under age 35. Meanwhile, Connecticut's health exchange reports that almost one-third of the exchange's initial 1,157 applicants were under age 35.

HHS is hoping that at least 2.7 million young adults -- or about 39% of the seven million target for total enrollment -- sign up for coverage, because their participation will help offset higher costs incurred by older, sicker enrollees (McKinney, Modern Healthcare, 10/15).

Obama Administration's Unpublished Estimates Project Strong Enrollment

The Obama administration still expects about seven million people will sign up for coverage through the ACA's exchanges, according to unpublished estimates included in a draft report on insurance premiums obtained by the Associated Press, the AP/U-T San Diego reports. According to AP/U-T San Diego, the report was drafted on Sept. 20 and included projected enrollment estimates by state, but HHS omitted those numbers when it released the final report on Sept. 25.

Among other state estimates, the draft report projected that California would enroll 1.3 million individuals in 2014, Texas would enroll 629,000 and Florida would enroll 477,000 (Miller/Alonso-Zaldivar, AP/U-T San Diego, 10/15).

Data for HealthCare.gov Visits Released

The number of visitors to the federally run exchange decreased by 88% between Oct. 1 and Oct 13, according to a report from the research firm Millward Brown Digital, the Washington Post's "Post Politics" reports.

The report found that of the 9.4 million unique visitors to HealthCare.gov in the first week:

• About one-third attempted to register;
• Just over one million completed registration; and
• Roughly 36,000 individuals -- or less than 0.5% of the site's visitors -- successfully signed up for coverage. 

Millward Brown Digital Vice President Matthew Pace wrote in a blog post that enrollment might increase once the administration resolves the site's technological glitches (Eilperin, "Post Politics," Washington Post, 10/15).