Health Status of ACA Enrollees by Sign-Up Month

Using their daily-tracking surveys since October 1, 2013, the operators of the Reuters/Ipsos Poll have been able to characterize trends in health status of people who have been signing up for insurance through the Affordable Care Act/Obamacare exchanges (hat tip to HuffPollster). In October, 69% of ACA enrollees who participated in the Reuters/Ipsos surveys claimed to have some significant health issue, whereas 31% reported none. The trend began shifting in November, however, with 55% of that month's enrollees claiming a health issue and 45% not. For January (which is less than half over), the numbers have reversed: 60% of this month's enrollees now report no major health issue, and 40% do. This development is important because, in order for insurance companies to cover the treatment of the sickest of its policyholders, they need a large volume of healthy subscribers to pay into the system without needing as much treatment.

Two Brief Items

The Republican-associated polling firm Public Opinion Strategies offers "Five Observations from Four Years of Polling Data on Obamacare" (via HuffPollster).  

The Washington Post's "Wonk Blog" notes that public interest in Obamacare seems to be declining, for the moment at least, as indicated by less Google activity and press coverage lately than during the fall (via Daily Kos). One possibly discussed by Wonk Blog is that enrollment under the Affordable Care Act is going relatively smoothly and good news is considered less newsworthy than bad news.