Frederica Freyberg:

Now to health news, at the national level, latest numbers show as of March 1st, some 4.2 million people have signed up for so-called Obamacare. What’s it look like in Wisconsin? The Wisconsin Office of the Insurance Commissioner is tracking enrollment numbers and issues. Dan Schwartzer is deputy insurance commissioner. Thanks for being here.

Dan Schwartzer:

Thank you. It's good to be here.

Frederica Freyberg:

We see those national numbers. What do those numbers look like for enrollment in Wisconsin?

Dan Schwartzer:

So we tracked the numbers. We have statutory authority over insurers to ask for specific data information. And we asked them how many folks signed up for January 1 effective dates and February 1 effective dates. And in total, both those months, roughly 45,000 folks enrolled, and then we asked them how many paid, and roughly 80% of them paid. So there’s about 20% that haven’t paid and probably won’t pay. So we looked at that just in order to gauge. We keep hearing about the enrollment data HHS is coming out with, and 4.2 million Americans, and mentioned 71,000 in Wisconsin. Again, those numbers don’t match apples to apples. But I think our main effort was to try to figure out where we’re tracking. 45,000 that enrolled for two months, January and February. That doesn’t include March effective dates or April 1 effective dates. But what we looked at it for is to try to figure out how many people are paying.

Frederica Freyberg:

So if 20% of the people who signed up did not pay, does that mean no coverage. They can't kind of pay later or pay by March 31st and have some expectation of April 1st coverage.

Dan Schwartzer:

Those that have enrolled that haven’t paid would have the ability to send in a check and pay for coverage, and they would likely be accepted by the carrier for that coverage for that month. But as you can imagine, the carriers have reached out to those who haven’t paid, trying to get them to pay, and they still haven’t paid. So it’s unlikely they would come back to pay.

Frederica Freyberg:

Is there any explanation why somebody would sign up and then decide, nah, never mind?

Dan Schwartzer:

I think in the early part of the website, when the ACA first rolled out in October and when it first started to be functional in November, they were requiring folks to go through all the enrollment process before they would start releasing premium numbers. So that had a lot of to do with it. I think a lot of it was curiosity, as well. What would it look like? Sign up all the way through, get the enrollment, but they didn’t pay. And in the insurance world, when we used to say enrolled, that meant enrolled and you sent your first month’s premium in. Under the ACA, we’ve developed a new definition now of what enrollment means, and we now have to determine how many of them have paid. Again, before the ACA, you never counted them as enrolled until they paid.

Frederica Freyberg:

So now, also, there are these different kinds of levels of deadlines going on.

Dan Schwartzer:

Right.

Frederica Freyberg:

March 15th, that being tomorrow, is one deadline. Who is that for?

Dan Schwartzer:

The March 15th deadline is for everyone who is going to look for an April 1 effective date, that doesn’t have a special open enrollment period. Their deadline to sign up for coverage is March 15th. So that’s tomorrow. That would give them an April 1 effective date. If they missed that deadline, at least in this first open enrollment year, they actually have until March 31st then to sign up, which would then give them, if they signed up between March 16^th and March 31^st, that would give them an effective date of May 1st.

Frederica Freyberg:

Who are these people in this special category of which you speak?

Dan Schwartzer:

So the special open enrollment qualifications under the ACA are basically life changing events. You’ve lost coverage in some way, shape, or form, you’ve added a child, got married. All of those provide a 60-day open enrollment window to sign up for coverage.

Frederica Freyberg:

And so you are saying that this population transitioning off BadgerCare is in that category? They actually have until the end of March to get April 1st coverage?

Dan Schwartzer:

Correct. Those folks that lose coverage, which would include those in the Medicaid program losing coverage March 31st, those in the high risk pool HIRSP, they’re losing coverage March 31st. They would have an April 1 effective date if they signed up by March 31st. Or if you lost coverage because you were in a job and the job coverage ended March 31st, you would be in that category of open enrollment. And that doesn't have to be March 31^st. If you lost your job coverage June 1st, you would then have two months to sign up for coverage as long as you sign up by May 31st, you’d have that June 1st effective date.

Frederica Freyberg:

We only have about a minute left after all of these deadlines and numbers and all of that, but you wanted to say something about some consumer issues that people are seeing on the web, some kind of fraudulent website or something that are going up?

Dan Schwartzer:

So what we did is we sent out an FAQ, we’ve done a press release and hopefully consumers can take a look at that on their website as well. Our main concern is there continues to be issues with the federal website, both front end and back end issues, 834 issues. An 834 issue is a file transfer that takes place between the insurer and HHS. There are many errors that are occurring at that level. One example is we had an insurer that received a file transfer that showed there were 52 people that signed up for a health plan in a county they weren’t supposed to be able to buy that coverage from. So that represents an error on the federal website, healthcare.gov. What happened is they sent those files back to HHS, and now HHS doesn’t have those files.

Frederica Freyberg:

People should check in with your office if they have issues?

Dan Schwartzer:

They need to check in with OCI, please.

Frederica Freyberg:

All right. Dan Schwartzer, thanks very much.

Dan Schwartzer:

Thank you. It's good to be here.

Frederica Freyberg:

As for the consumer fraud issues of which I spoke, which are different from the technical glitches on the federal website for health care, the Wisconsin Insurance Commissioner’s office does have information on its website for consumers to look at.