Private health plans show big gains for second straight week; more than 5,400 new purchases
FRANKFORT, KY. – Since Thanksgiving week, enrollments in affordable health care through Kentucky’s state health insurance exchange have jumped 40 percent – adding another 24,140 Kentuckians to the list of the newly insured.
As Kentucky’s health website administrators predicted, thousands of Kentuckians are making final decisions on their family’s health care plans in time to ensure their coverage is effective on the first possible date of January 1.
Kentucky’s health benefit exchange, kynect, also saw big increases in enrollments of private health plans, with 5,400 more enrollments just in the past week, an increase of 35 percent over last week’s total.
kynect’s technology team had anticipated a post-holiday increase in web traffic, applications and enrollments and increased capacity in order to meet the demand.
kynect has been hailed as a national model since its launch Oct. 1 for its continuous smooth operation and easy interface for users looking for affordable health coverage. The site continues to enroll about 1,000 Kentuckians each day into new health coverage.
Families and individuals seeking affordable health insurance coverage should enroll by Dec. 23 and make their first insurance premium payment (if applicable) by Jan. 1 in order to ensure their coverage will begin on Jan. 1.
The below statistics reflect activity on kynect as of 7 p.m. Thursday, Dec. 12:
622,149 unique visitors viewing nearly 18.7 million web pages. That’s an increase of more than 48,000 new website visitors in just over a week.
481,703 people conducted preliminary screenings to determine qualifications for subsidies, discounts or programs like Medicaid – nearly 28,000 new screenings.
84,422 enrolled in new health coverage, including Medicaid and private insurance – a 17 percent increase over last week
64,471 have enrolled in Medicaid
20,951 have enrolled in a qualified health plan – an additional 5,433 over last week, which is a 35 percent jump in private health insurance enrollments
40 percent of the enrollees in Medicaid or qualified health plans are under 35 years old. 32,453 have been found eligible for a subsidy to purchase a qualified health plan, but most have not yet chosen a plan
6,248 have enrolled in dental plans
1,164 small businesses have started applications for employee coverage; 475 of those businesses have completed applications and are eligible to offer coverage to employees.
More than 230,000 calls processed by the kynect call center
For further updates on kynect numbers, visit governor.ky.gov/healthierky. Statistics will be updated there regularly.
