Health News
- Kynect Enrollment Accelerates As Monday Deadline Nears; Call Center To Be Open Form 8 To 4:30 Saturday And Sunday
Enrollment in coverage through the state's Kynect health-insurance exchange is accelerating as Monday's deadline for open enrollment approached. State officials reported Friday that the rate has surpassed 4,000 per day, bringing the total to more...
- One In 13 Kentuckians Have Health Coverage Through Kynect
Nearly 322,000 Kentuckians had enrolled for health coverage through the state's new insurance exchange through 6 p.m. Thursday, March 20, and three-fourths of them didn't have coverage before, according to the state's preliminary analysis....
- State Insurance Exchange Officials Say They're Not Worried About Relatively Low Share Of People 18-34 Signing Up For Health Plans
By Melissa Landon Kentucky Health News Two and a half months before the initial enrollment period ends, only 21.6 percent of Kentuckians who have signed up for a health plan are aged 18 to 34. The new health-insurance system depends on young people's...
- Kentucky's Obamacare Website's Success Resulted From Careful And Early Testing, Unlike The Federal Website, Writers Say
While Kynect, Kentucky's online health insurance marketplace, is being hailed as the country's best Obamacare website, the federal government's $634 million Healthcare.gov website continues to marred by technological glitches and bad...
- Most Who Would Benefit From Insurance Exchanges Under Health Reform Knew Nothing About Them Last Fall
The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act will affect millions of Americans, especially those in rural areas. But many are not prepared for the coming changes, according to a survey by Enroll America, a non-profit group that calls itself "a nonpartisan...
Health News
Kentucky's health-insurance exchange has covered a greater share of population than any other state-based exchange
Kentucky has registered more people for Medicaid and private health insurance than any other state with its own exchange created under the federal health-reform law, Christine Vestal reports for Stateline, in a story explaining why Kynect and some other state exchanges are working well.
?Our system doesn?t have a lot of bells and whistles,? Carrie Banahan, executive director of the Kentucky Health Benefits Exchange (the formal name of Kynect), told Vestal. ?There aren?t a lot of graphics that would take a lot of bandwidth.?
"Kentucky and other top-performing states enable consumers to browse the various plans available on the exchange without first having to set up a password-protected account," Vestal notes. "That step alone spared those exchanges a lot of error messages and screen freezes experienced by people using the federal site," Healthcare.gov.
"Successful states also devoted months, not weeks, to exhaustive, round-the-clock testing," Vestal writes. "Kentucky tested for three months, while the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services reportedly devoted only the last two weeks of September to testing Healthcare.gov before its Oct. 1 launch."
The four most successful states ? Connecticut, Kentucky, Rhode Island and Washington ? all contracted with the consulting firm Deloitte "to manage and develop their sites," using federal funds, Vestal reports. Kentucky's expenses for its exchange were higher than average. (Stateline chart)
UPDATE: As of 7 p.m. Thursday, Dec. 5, after 10 days of increased traffic and enrollments, the exchange said it had enrolled 71,955 people, 56,437 of them in Medicaid and 15,518 in private plans. Most of the 28,307 who had been found eligible for a subsidy to buy a private plan had not chosen a plan yet. Dental plans had 5,074 enrollees.
?Our system doesn?t have a lot of bells and whistles,? Carrie Banahan, executive director of the Kentucky Health Benefits Exchange (the formal name of Kynect), told Vestal. ?There aren?t a lot of graphics that would take a lot of bandwidth.?
"Kentucky and other top-performing states enable consumers to browse the various plans available on the exchange without first having to set up a password-protected account," Vestal notes. "That step alone spared those exchanges a lot of error messages and screen freezes experienced by people using the federal site," Healthcare.gov.
"Successful states also devoted months, not weeks, to exhaustive, round-the-clock testing," Vestal writes. "Kentucky tested for three months, while the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services reportedly devoted only the last two weeks of September to testing Healthcare.gov before its Oct. 1 launch."
UPDATE: As of 7 p.m. Thursday, Dec. 5, after 10 days of increased traffic and enrollments, the exchange said it had enrolled 71,955 people, 56,437 of them in Medicaid and 15,518 in private plans. Most of the 28,307 who had been found eligible for a subsidy to buy a private plan had not chosen a plan yet. Dental plans had 5,074 enrollees.
- Kynect Enrollment Accelerates As Monday Deadline Nears; Call Center To Be Open Form 8 To 4:30 Saturday And Sunday
Enrollment in coverage through the state's Kynect health-insurance exchange is accelerating as Monday's deadline for open enrollment approached. State officials reported Friday that the rate has surpassed 4,000 per day, bringing the total to more...
- One In 13 Kentuckians Have Health Coverage Through Kynect
Nearly 322,000 Kentuckians had enrolled for health coverage through the state's new insurance exchange through 6 p.m. Thursday, March 20, and three-fourths of them didn't have coverage before, according to the state's preliminary analysis....
- State Insurance Exchange Officials Say They're Not Worried About Relatively Low Share Of People 18-34 Signing Up For Health Plans
By Melissa Landon Kentucky Health News Two and a half months before the initial enrollment period ends, only 21.6 percent of Kentuckians who have signed up for a health plan are aged 18 to 34. The new health-insurance system depends on young people's...
- Kentucky's Obamacare Website's Success Resulted From Careful And Early Testing, Unlike The Federal Website, Writers Say
While Kynect, Kentucky's online health insurance marketplace, is being hailed as the country's best Obamacare website, the federal government's $634 million Healthcare.gov website continues to marred by technological glitches and bad...
- Most Who Would Benefit From Insurance Exchanges Under Health Reform Knew Nothing About Them Last Fall
The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act will affect millions of Americans, especially those in rural areas. But many are not prepared for the coming changes, according to a survey by Enroll America, a non-profit group that calls itself "a nonpartisan...