The Denver Post reports that Connect For Health Colorado, the state’s ObamaCare health exchange, had enrolled about 6,000 people in health plans as of November 18, 2013.
To put this number into perspective, consider that in February 2013 there were 13,670 people enrolled in CoverColorado, the state’s high-risk pool. CoverColorado provides subsidized insurance for people who are uninsurable in the private market. All of these people have serious illnesses.
As a result of ObamaCare, CoverColorado enrollees will have to find new coverage. They have been advised that the high-risk pool will cease operations on March 31, 2014. Roughly one-third of CoverColorado enrollees were eligible for subsidies because their household incomes were under $40,000. This means that about 4,500 people with serious health problems would be eligible for subsidized policies through Connect for Health Colorado simply because they lost their CoverColorado policies. An additional 1,227 Coloradans were covered by the U.S. government’s pre-existing condition plan as of June 30, 2013.
So Connect for Health Colorado’s November enrollment is only a few hundred more than the number of people with pre-existing conditions that will lose their policies as a result of ObamaCare.
Linda Gorman is health care policy center director at the Independence Institute, a free-market think tank in Denver.
