Week 4: Enrollment Remains Steady but Needs to Improve to Stay on Par with Last Year

CMS announced another week of steady enrollment for people signing up for coverage at HealthCare.gov. The week of Thanksgiving is always one of the slowest weeks for enrollment because of the holiday, but enrollments for the week continued to outpace previous Thanksgiving weeks. Comparing enrollment during the first 4 weeks this year to the equivalent period last year, shows that cumulative sign-ups are still up 30% overall and total daily sign-ups are up 35%.

Keep in mind that the cumulative data CMS released today is for 25 days of enrollment this year compared to 28 days for OE3 and 26 days for OE4. See the tables below for a daily, week-by-week, and graph comparisons for sign-ups, new enrollment and returning consumers.

Here’s our take from Get America Covered:

Enrollment continues to outpace previous years. Relative to last year, another steady week of enrollment means that average daily new consumers is 44% higher and daily returning consumer enrollment is up by 33%. However, the increase in sign-ups compared to last year is starting to get smaller. Remember, due to the shortened open enrollment period, new consumer enrollment must significantly outpace last year for a comparable number of people to sign up this year as signed up last year.

Historically, the week of Cyber Monday we see a significant increase in the pace of enrollment. Last year, 85% more people enrolled in Week 5 compared to Week 4 — and the pace of new consumers enrolling picks up even faster with 135% more new enrollments in Week 5. As we’ve said before, we expect the administration’s decision to significantly cut advertising and outreach will play out during these final three weeks. Not only does the impact of advertising build over time as people see more ads, the majority of the outreach spending is reserved for the final weeks before a deadline when young and healthy people are more likely to enroll.

Week 4: Cumulative Totals and Daily Averages

Open Enrollment 5: Weekly Comparison

NOTE: Keep in mind that Week 1 during OE5 was only 4 days, compared to 5 days for OE4 and 7 days for OE3. Last year, CMS released bi-weekly snapshots instead of weekly. Weekly numbers for OE4 use total weekly enrollment from the Public Use Files and new and returning enrollment is derived from the new\returning split in the corresponding biweekly snapshot.

State-by-State Comparison

Once again, CMS released state data. We compared the first 25 days of OE5 to the first 26 days of OE4.

Every state, besides West Virginia, continues to show enrollment growth over last year. Total sign-ups are up between 53% and 40% compared to last year in the top 10 states: Maine, Wyoming, Texas, Mississippi, Iowa, North Dakota, Nebraska, Alaska, New Hampshire and Illinois.

OE4 vs OE5 Comparison

In each of the following graphs the blue line tracks cumulative enrollment by week during the 5th Open Enrollment Period (OE5) and the orange line during the 4th Open Enrollment (OE4). We have a graph for Total, New and Returning enrollment. For each data point, we’ve included the

change over the equivalent week during the previous year.

Graph 1: Cumulative Returning Enrollment by Week OE4 vs OE5

* Week 1 was one day shorter in OE5

The schedule for returning enrollment this year is essentially the same — so the increases we are seeing in active renewal are substantial. While the gap between this year’s returning performance is closing, returning enrollment continues to track ahead of last year — likely the result of anxious consumers motivated to get coverage and the availability of more affordable plans for most consumers.

Graph 2: Cumulative New Enrollment by Week OE4 vs OE5

* Week 1 was one day shorter in OE5

As we said last week, the schedule for new enrollment is very different this year — the administration cut Open Enrollment in half. Significantly more new enrollments need to happen each week to stay on pace with last year. This week we’ve added to the graph the total number of new enrollments that occurred through the end of Open Enrollment last year as a reference point.

Graph 3: Cumulative Total Enrollment by Week OE4 vs OE5

* Week 1 was one day shorter in OE5

All three graphs show that even with minimal outreach by the administration, cumulative enrollment is higher this year than last year (Note: the first week this year was a day shorter so the increase over last year is actually larger than depicted). The most important weeks of Open Enrollment are still ahead of us, so we’ll continue to watch this closely.