Statement from Connect for Health Colorado® Interim CEO Gary Drews on Open Enrollment

CONTACT:
Curtis Hubbard, [email protected], 303-908-2378

“Connect for Health Colorado just concluded its second open-enrollment period, a three-month span in which we enrolled about 140,000 Coloradans in private health insurance.

You may have seen media reports claiming this number failed to meet our expectations.  While we know that we can always do better, I think it’s important at this juncture — particularly given how hard our staff, our Brokers, our Health Coverage Guides, our Carrier partners and other key stakeholders worked on behalf of our customers over the last three  months — to set the record straight.

Earlier this year, as part of our regular budgeting forecast, we developed a range of projections for total enrollments for year-end 2015 — the mid-range of which was 194,277. Again, it’s important to note that this is a year-end projection.

For context, remember that, at the end of open enrollment in April of 2014, Connect for Health Colorado had enrolled 128,000 customers. Each month after, we continued to enroll a significant number of Coloradans (4,000 per month average) who experienced life change events — taking our total for the calendar year to more than 150,000 enrollments.

As of February 19 we had 139,652 enrollees —a 9% increase over the first open enrollment period, which lasted  twice as long. Less than 2 months into this year, we are at 72% of the mid-range, year-end goal.

We will be paying close attention to enrollment and other data in coming months as we develop our 2016 budget, and will keep you all advised on additional developments.”

Gary Drews
Interim CEO
Connect for Health Colorado