POLITICO Pro: CMS: No enrollment numbers for SHOP
September 18, 2014
By Brett Norman
A CMS official told a House panel this afternoon that she could not provide enrollment numbers in Obmacare’s small business exchanges.
Mayra Alvarez, director of the state exchange group at CCIIO, said that the agency “is not the source of SHOP enrollment," because businesses did not have online access in the first year, requiring them to apply by paper, through an agent or broker or directly through insurers.
But CMS is “working to get that information from issuers, and as soon as we have it, we will share it with you,” Alvarez told Rep. Chris Collins, chairman of the Small Business Subcommittee on Health and Technology.
CMS has been forthcoming about individual exchange enrollment. This morning, Administrator Marilyn Tavenner told the House Oversight Committee that 7.3 million people were paying Obamacare customers through mid-August — the first update since the administration reported more than 8 million sign-ups after the end of open enrollment in April.
SHOP enrollment in many states this year was minimal. In Washington state, for instance, 11 companies with about 40 employees total enrolled, despite more than 2,000 businesses setting up accounts, according to testimony at the hearing.
Washington was not typical, however. Jon Gabel, a senior fellow of NORC at the University of Chicago, told the hearing that it was the only state with just one insurance company offering coverage through SHOP. He also said “SHOP plans cost less than the plans” outside of the exchange.
