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NM health exchange tries to ease problems with Obamacare website

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By Rob Nikolewski │ New Mexico Watchdog

SANTA FE – After 10 days and with thousands of New Mexicans unable to log onto the federal website, state insurance officials have posted a static page, allowing people to at least get an idea about what Affordable Care Act options are available.

“For example, we’re putting up the rates available for (people) ages 30, 40, 50, 60,” Aaron Ezekiel, director of the ACA Implementation Projects for the New Mexico Office of the Superintendent of Insurance, told New Mexico Watchdog. “You can get some basic information. The idea is to provide a stop-gap.”

STOP GAP: To ease problems people have experienced with the troubled federal health care website, officials in New Mexico have linked to a page that gives customers a chance to at least get an idea what’s being offered.

Since the ACA rolled out Oct 1, people in New Mexico — and 35 other states across the country — who want information on individual policies are directed to the www.healthcare.gov site.

But the federal website has turned back nearly everyone who has tried to establish accounts and get information on coverage and premium options.

For example, on three different occasions, between Oct. 1 and Oct. 8, New Mexico Watchdog was unable to get past the security questions on the www.healthcare.gov site. On Thursday night, NM Watchdog was turned back for a fourth time — 10 days into the Oct. 1 rollout.

By contrast, the New Mexico Health Insurance Exchange website — www.bewellnm.com, which handles small businesses and their employees in the state but not individual claims — has reported signing up 558 employers and just fewer than 1,200 of their employees as new customers.

Friday morning, the www.bewellnm.com website posted this message:

nmhix site directing to static web page

The link takes potential customers to a page showing companies in New Mexico that offer individual policies and price listings.

But premiums and coverage plans depend on individual circumstances and require signing up with the ACA plan through the federal government.

The link “at least provides some basic information,” Ezekiel said. “It will not only have rates but also, for each plan, it will have little blocks to describe (what is offered) and a PDF of their summary of benefits.”

The federal plan has come under increasing criticism. In separate TV interviews earlier this week, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and Treasury Secretary Jack Lew couldn’t say how many Americans have so far signed up.

Ezekiel downplayed the problems with the www.healthcare.gov site.

“Yes, I’d like it to be up,” Ezekiel said. “I’m very frustrated but this is trivial growing pains in the big picture … The truth is, people who want insurance are going to come back.”

Next year, the New Mexico Health Insurance Exchange will handle individual policies, with enrollment starting in October 2014 and policies going into effect in January 2015.

“I am very hopeful and confident that a year from now — at least for New Mexicans — when (the NMIX runs things) that problem will no longer exist,” NMIX consumer advocate Dr. Deane Waldman told New Mexico Watchdog earlier this week. “At this point, all I can say is, ‘Sorry, but next year we’ll take care of you.’ ”

Contact Rob Nikolewski at rnikolewski@watchdog.org and follow him on Twitter @robnikolewski


Obamacare numbers in New Mexico lagging behind expectations

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BEHIND SCHEDULE: The New Mexico Health Insurance Exchange is counting on a $6 million-$7 million advertising blitz to help the exchange reach its goal of signing up 83,000 by the end of next year.

BEHIND SCHEDULE: The New Mexico Health Insurance Exchange is counting on a $6 million-$7 million advertising blitz to help the exchange reach its goal of signing up 83,000 by the end of next year.

By Rob Nikolewski │ New Mexico Watchdog

SANTA FE – The good news for supporters of the Affordable Care Act in New Mexico?

More than four times more people successfully signed up for individual health care policies coverage in the state in November than in October.

The bad news?

Since the October numbers were so meager because of the glitch-filled www.healthcare.gov federal website, there was nowhere to go but up. Plus, even with the spike in November, the overall numbers are lagging far behind expectations.

When the ACA, known as Obamacare, rolled out on Oct. 1, officials at the New Mexico Health Insurance Exchange had a goal of signing up 83,000 people in individual policies as well as Medicaid, and the exchange serving small business owners and their employees by the end of 2014.

“Like all the other states across the nation, we’re adjusting those figures, given the technical issues,” Debra Hammer, chief communications officer for the exchange, told New Mexico Watchdog. “We’re hoping there will be more functionality to get close to that goal.”

As of Nov. 30, 934 New Mexico residents signed up for individual policies, compared to 172 in October.

Hammer said about 300 small-business owners and employees have signed up.

But to reach the 83,000 goal, New Mexico would have to average more than 6,300 each month for the next 13 months.

Hammer admitted “we’re changing some of those goals up,” but he wouldn’t say what those new goals are.

NMIX had to delay its $6 million-$7 million advertising blitz because of the federal website’s problems. But Hammer says television and radio commercials, billboards and print ads are rolling out and officials at the exchange are counting on the campaign to help dramatically boost enrollment numbers.

Here’s one of the TV spots airing now:

In addition, last week, U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius announced $58 million in additional grants to 1,157 health centers across the nation to boost signups. For New Mexico, that means an extra $375,000 for 15 centers that already have received $2.5 million.

New Mexico employs a hybrid system when it comes to Obamacare.

Small-business owners and employees can skip the healthcare.gov site and get their coverage plans through the state’s www.bewellnm.com website operated by NMIX.

However, individual plans that qualify for federal subsidies must go through the federal government.

Individual plans need to finalized by Dec. 23 for coverage to go into effect by Jan. 1.

Contact Rob Nikolewski at rnikolewski@watchdog.org and follow him on Twitter @robnikolewski

Article says 38 Obamacare navigators in NM appeared on FBI database

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FLAGGED BY THE FBI: A story in the National Review says the names of one in seven Obamacare navigators in New Mexico appeared on an FBI criminal database.

FLAGGED BY THE FBI: A story in the National Review says the names of one in seven Obamacare navigators in New Mexico appeared on an FBI criminal database.

By Rob Nikolewski │ New Mexico Watchdog

SANTA FE – An investigation by the National Review, one of the leading conservative media outlets in the country, reports that one in seven navigators in New Mexico hired to help consumers work their way through the Affordable Care Act appeared on the FBI’s National Crime Information Center database.

But an official with the state’s Affordable Care Act Implementation Projects emphasizes that while a person’s name may turn up on the FBI database, it does not mean they pose any risk to consumers and says the navigators have been properly vetted.

According to the story, 38 New Mexico health-care guides or certified application counselors received their certification to deal with consumers working their way through what’s colloquially called “Obamacare,” even though their names matched the FBI database. The National Review’s inspection could not determine how many of the 38 navigators had actually been convicted of a crime.

“We’ve been very careful not to provide licensure to anyone we thought was a risk,” Aaron Ezekiel of the New Mexico Office of the Superintendent of Insurance said to the National Review.

Among the charges that popped up on the FBI criminal database were eight domestic violence charges, four drug charges, two larceny charges, one petty theft charge, one shoplifting charge and two child abuse charges.

According to the FBI, the database can include arrest records and criminal cases that were dismissed or led to an acquittal.

The article quotes New Mexico Health Insurance Exchange spokeswoman Deborah Hammer saying that the charges associated with the 38 navigators have all been adjudicated and their respective employers have performed background checks.

“We definitely believe in second chances, and people have a right to be gainfully employed,” Hammer told the National Review.

Click here to read the entire NR article.

Contact Rob Nikolewski at rnikolewski@watchdog.org and follow him on Twitter @robnikolewski

Obamacare numbers in NM slip 41.8 percent in January

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A ROUGH MONTH: Officials at the New Mexico Health Insurance Exchange hope a marketing campaign can help boost enrollment numbers after a drop of 41.8 percent in January.

By Rob Nikolewski │ New Mexico Watchdog

SANTA FE – Monthly enrollment figures for individual policies under the Affordable Care Act in New Mexico dropped 41.8 percent between Jan. 1 and Feb. 1.

Despite the fall-off, officials at the New Mexico Health Insurance Exchange hope a series of marketing strategies can help the exchange reach its goal of signing up 50,000 New Mexicans by March 31.

On Wednesday, the U.S. Health and Human Services Department released its numbers through Feb. 1 for all 50 states.

After signing up 6,754 people in New Mexico to individual policies in December, the number for January dropped to 3,932.

“I think that’s the national trend,” Debra Hammer, chief communications officer for NMHIX, told New Mexico Watchdog, pointing to the fact that enrollees faced a Dec. 31 deadline to sign up for their policies to go into effect by the start of 2014.

The next important deadline is March 31, which marks the end of the open-enrollment period.

“The next two months will be really telling,” Hammer said.

Thus far, 11,620 New Mexicans have signed up for individual Obamacare policies. Originally, NMHIX officials hoped to sign up more than 80,000 by March 31. But after the botched online rollout, which frustrated millions of Americans, the New Mexico goal was adjusted down to 50,000.

To reach that goal, more than 38,000 New Mexicans would have to sign up in the next two months. Is that realistic?

“We’re going to do our best,” Mike Nuñez, the NHMIX interim CEO, said Friday. “Those are still our goals.”

Another goal — not only in New Mexico but across the country — is to lure people in the age 18-34 demographic to buy coverage. Without the “young invincibles,” the ACA won’t be financially viable in the long run.

In the past month, NMHIX has been running an advertising campaign aimed at young people. But the most recent figures from HHS show that, in New Mexico, most of the people signing up are older.

Some 59 percent of enrollees are 45 and older, which is six points higher than the national average; 37 percent of New Mexico sign-ups are between 55 and 64 — six points higher than reported for all states.

New Mexico’s numbers for enrollees between the ages of 18 and 34 improved slightly in the past month, from 18 percent to 20 percent.

“That’s the plus side,” Nuñez said. “This is a different population to reach, and we’re really targeting them now in a unique and novel way.”

NMHIX is running more television commercials featuring young people, and the exchange is taking its marketing campaign on the road. Earlier this week, Nuñez said, his organization launched a “three-city release” that included talking to students at community colleges in Albuquerque, Roswell and Las Cruces.

The exchange is also targeting people who fall between 138 percent and 400 percent of the poverty level through direct marketing and “tele-town halls,” Nuñez said as the March 31 open enrollment deadline approaches.

“Those are our two focuses,” Nuñez said.

“I think we’re going to see a last-minute push,” Hammer said. “I think a lot of people are unaware of (the March 31 deadline).”

Here’s the breakdown for New Mexico enrollment numbers for individual Obamacare plans:

obamacare numbers for january 2014

And here’s one of the new TV commercials NMHIX is running to lure young people:

Contact Rob Nikolewski at rnikolewski@watchdog.org and follow him on Twitter @robnikolewski

About 103,000 sign up for Medicaid in NM … good news, right?

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BIG NUMBERS: More than 103,000 people in New Mexico have enrolled under the state’s expanded Medicaid program.


By Rob Nikolewski │ New Mexico Watchdog

SANTA FE – The estimates for enrollment in Obamacare individual policies may be falling short in New Mexico, but sign-ups for the state’s Medicaid expansion are surging.

Officials announced Wednesday that slightly more than 103,000 low-income New Mexicans across the state have jumped aboard for the state’s new Centennial Care health plan since Oct. 1, putting it ahead of its goal to sign up 130,000 by fall.

“We’re happy with the numbers so far,” said Human Services Department spokesman Matt Kennicott. “We were pretty confident we could hit our goals, we just didn’t know we’d hit them at this rate.”

By contrast, sign-ups in New Mexico for individual plans under the Affordable Care Act have lagged.

Originally, officials at the New Mexico Health Insurance Exchange hoped 80,000 people would enroll for individual policies by the end of this year. Due to the problems associated with the rollout of healthcare.gov, though, NMIX reduced its target to 50,000.

Through March 1, a little more than 15,000 New Mexicans have signed up for individual policies.

In contrast, the figures released Tuesday show that nearly seven times more new enrollments are from Medicaid than from individual policies.

“I’m delighted about this,” said former state Sen. Dede Feldman, D-Albuquerque, upon being told about the 103,000 sign-ups. “This new population of enrollees includes adults … and people who are hard to insure and people with mental illnesses who are now eligible, and that will save money in the long run.”

Under the deal, the federal government will pay 100 percent of Medicaid costs for the first three years; that will drop to 90 percent by 2020.

But one member of the NMHIX board is worried about the lopsided nature of the state’s Medicaid vs. ACA numbers.

“Medically, it’s a good thing to have more people insured because, in theory, they will get more care when they need it,” said Dr. Deane Waldman, a pediatric cardiologist in Albuquerque.

But Waldman points out that while no premiums are attached to Medicaid recipients, the federal health-care exchange does not disclose how many people are paying — and how many are getting partial or full subsidies — through Obamacare individual policies.

“The insurers could get hit with a huge bill, and there is no compensation,” Waldman said. “It’s really worrisome to me that people will sign up and not pay their premiums.”

Citing some of those concerns, 21 states — most with Republican governors — have turned down the offer to expand Medicaid. But New Mexico’s Republican governor, Susana Martinez, decided to accept the deal.

Saying “this decision comes down to what is best for New Mexicans,” Martinez said in January 2013 that she decided to go forward with Medicaid expansion after “I weighed every possible outcome and impact.”

“It’s pretty hard to turn that down,” Feldman said, adding that she thinks the Medicaid expenses “will be fixed, as was Medicare and Social Security.”

Waldman countered by saying, “The feds literally have no way track those who sign up (for individual policies) and don’t pay. This is not a non-trivial problem.”

Contact Rob Nikolewski at rnikolewski@watchdog.org and follow him on Twitter @robnikolewski

Mixed results for Obamacare numbers in NM

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A SURGE, BUT …: The number of people in New Mexico signing up for Affordable Care Act quadrupled in the last few weeks of open enrollment but there are some concerns behind the numbers.

By Rob Nikolewski │ New Mexico Watchdog

SANTA FE – The number of people in New Mexico signing up for individual policies under the Affordable Care Act surged during a six-week push before the open-enrollment deadline passed.

But there are questions about how many have paid their premiums, and the number of so-called “young invincibles” is still below expectations.

In numbers released Thursday by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 32,062 New Mexicans have signed up for Obamacare.

More than half of those (17,050) signed up in March and the first 15 days in April. The enrollment deadline was originally set for March 31, but President Obama extended it.

“It was a very significant increase,” Mike Nuñez, the interim CEO of the New Mexico Health Insurance Exchange (NMHIX), told New Mexico Watchdog. “The deadline drove a lot of people to motivate, to call, to get in lines, to take actions.”

Compared to the results from February, the 17,050-figure represents an increase of a whopping 402 percent, snapping a two-month skid that saw the percentage in New Mexico drop in January and February.

“We did a lot of work to get a lot of people connected,” Nuñez said, including sending 10,000 electronic post cards, 3,700 emails and 28,000 phone calls to eligible enrollees.

obamacare numbers through april 19 for nm

But warning signs still accompany the statistics.

First, only 23 percent of those enrolled in New Mexico were between the ages of 18 and 34 — the “young invincibles” that need to sign up to keep premiums from increasing. That’s 3 percent higher than March but 5 percent less than the national 18-34 figure of 28 percent:

obamacare numbers by age through april 19

“Our goal is at least 30 percent” of enrollees being under the age of 35, said Dr. J.R. Damron, chairman of the NMIX board. “We want to at least match what the feds have. It’s got to be affordable.”

“It means we need to further intensify our efforts,” Nuñez said.

Even the national numbers for the 18-34 category are 12 percent below the 40 percent expected when the ACA rolled out last year.

The largest age group signing up in New Mexico were people between from ages 55 to 64 — 32 percent, which is 7 percent higher than the national average.

Second, HHS has not disclosed how many of the 8 million people across the nation who have signed up have actually paid their first-month’s premiums.

But saying it cross-checked the HHS numbers with insurance companies, the House Energy and Commerce Committee claims 33 percent of those on individual plans have not paid their first-month premiums.

HHS on Thursday said it won’t have numbers for paying customers until later this year but contended the House committee numbers looked at only about half the insurers who offer ACA plans.

“It doesn’t match with public comments by insurance company executives, most of which have indicated that they are seeing 80 (percent) to 90 percent of their enrollees pay their premiums,” White House spokesman Jay Carney said Thursday.

“If you were a business owner and you have accounts receivable and 20 percent of your accounts on a monthly basis did not pay their bill, you’d say, we’ve got a problem here,” said Rep. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tennessee, who sits on the committee.

Nuñez said NMHIX doesn’t know how many enrollees in New Mexico have paid their premiums. “We’ve been focused on getting the enrollments in,” he said. “Now we can start looking at who’s in, who’s paid and do some analysis on that.” Nuñez did not have a specific date when that analysis would start.

Here is the breakdown for enrollees by gender and those receiving federal subsidies:

by gender

The next open enrollment period for Obamacare starts Nov. 15, but NMHIX officials are appealing to HHS to let New Mexico start Oct. 1.

“We want to have as long an enrollment period as possible to reach out to all those folks tell them that they can come to us,” Nuñez said.

Starting this fall, enrollees in New Mexico can deal directly with the NMHIX website, www.bewell.nm.com, instead of the www.healthcare.gov site that was plagued by so many problems earlier this year.

“I don’t think we would have had those challenges that occurred, especially in the first 75-90 days with the federal website,” Damron said.

When the NMHIX site launched late last year, officials set a goal of 83,000 sign-up for individual policies by the end of 2014. That’s a little more than 51,000 shy of where New Mexico stands now.

“At 32,000 we’re in the ballpark, but it’s not where we want to be,” Damron said.

Contact Rob Nikolewski at rnikolewski@watchdog.org and follow him on Twitter @robnikolewski

Obamacare court decision ‘potentially crushing’ for NM health exchange

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COURT SETBACK: An appeals court in Washington D.C. ruled that the Affordable Care Act cannot extend tax credits to federal health care exchanges.

COURT SETBACK: An appeals court in Washington D.C. ruled that the Affordable Care Act cannot extend tax credits to federal health care exchanges.

By Rob Nikolewski │ New Mexico Watchdog

SANTA FE — An appeals court decision in Washington, D.C., on Obamacare subsidies could be “potentially crushing” for New Mexicans who signed up for individual health care policies expecting big tax credits to reduce their monthly premiums, a member of the New Mexico Health Insurance Exchange said.

The District of Columbia Circuit Court of Appeals, in a 2-1 decision Tuesday morning, struck down subsidies granted in states using federal health exchanges, dealing a blow to the Affordable Care Act across the country.

“That means everybody who signed up on healthcare.gov is not eligible for tax subsidies,” said Dr. Deane Waldman, who has served on the NMHIX board since it was established last spring, “which means they’re going to be exposed to the full and greatly increased cost of insurance premiums.”

At issue before the court in the Halbig v. Burwell case was the wording in the ACA, which said subsidies could only be granted by state exchanges, not the federal exchange.

While NMHIX sold plans for businesses this past year, all individual plans had to go through the federal www.healthcare.gov website that experienced a series of mishaps during its rollout.

According to the most recent numbers from the U.S. Health and Human Services Department, 32,062 people in New Mexico signed up for individual policies and 79 percent are receiving subsidies.

“If this is upheld, they’re not going to see $300 or $400 they paid (all of) last year but $500 or $600 a month because the insurance premiums have gone up tremendously in our country because of the ACA,” Waldman told New Mexico Watchdog.

Tuesday’s ruling hits the 27 states that did not set up state-based exchanges and nine other states — including New Mexico — that used a combination of federal and state exchanges.

The Obama administration says it will call for an “en banc” hearing on the ruling, which would have the entire Court of Appeals listen to the D.C. case.

Reacting to the decision, White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said “there’s a clear, commonsense case to be made” that the intent of the ACA “was to be sure that every eligible American who applied for tax credits to make their health insurance more affordable would have access to those tax credits whether or not the marketplace was operated by federal officials or state officials.”

Supporters also pointed to another ruling that came down Tuesday in Virginia in a separate case that decided the wording in the ACA was written so ambiguously that subsidies could be allowed.

But Obamacare critics say they could see a ruling like this coming.

“Neither executive-agency bureaucrats nor judges can change the text of the Affordable Care Act, after-the-fact legal rationalizing notwithstanding,” said Michael Cannon, director of health policy studies at the Cato Institute. “Today’s ruling shows that Obamacare, a cynical political bargain that lacked popular support from day one, simply doesn’t work as conceived. It’s time to repeal this Frankenstein’s monster and instead pass market-based health care reform that lowers costs, expands choice, and increases quality — all while respecting the rule of law.”

Cannon said the Halbig decision will not increase premiums.

“What it would do is prevent the IRS from shifting the burden of those premiums from enrollees to taxpayers,” Cannon wrote in Forbes. “Premiums for federal-exchange enrollees would not rise, but those enrollees would face the full cost of their ‘ObamaCare’ plans.”

Waldman said the NMHIX board will take up the implications of the Halbig decision Friday when it meets in Albuquerque.

“This leaves us in limbo,” Waldman said. “This is a big deal … The American public could see that the Affordable Care Act is tremendously unaffordable.”

Contact Rob Nikolewski at rnikolewski@watchdog.org and follow him on Twitter @robnikolewski

New health exchange boss in NM survived controversy in Idaho

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COMING TO NEW MEXICO FROM IDAHO:  Amy Dowd, the new executive director of the New Mexico Health Insurance Exchange, comes highly recommended but she had to weather some controversy.

COMING TO NEW MEXICO FROM IDAHO: Amy Dowd, the new executive director of the New Mexico Health Insurance Exchange, comes highly recommended but she had to weather some controversy.

By Rob Nikolewski │ New Mexico Watchdog

SANTA FE — The New Mexico Health Insurance Exchange has hired a new executive director who received positive recommendations for running the exchange in Idaho, despite controversy over a no-bid contract that was granted and then rescinded last fall.

“She’s done a good job,” Idaho state Sen. Jim Rice, a Republican, said of Amy Dowd, to whom the board members at NMIX unanimously voted earlier this month to offer the job running the state’s implementation of the Affordable Care Act, colloquially called “Obamacare.”

Rice is a member of the “Your Health Idaho” board and sharply criticized Dowd after it was revealed a board member, Frank Chan, had been awarded a $375,000 technology contract by Dowd even though no bids from outside vendors were offered. Chan ended up quitting the same day the contract was announced.

“She made a dumb mistake,” Rice told New Mexico Watchdog in a telephone interview. “She hasn’t repeated it. You just don’t hire someone on your board.”

The contract led to a two-week investigation, but the board of the Idaho health exchange made no personnel changes and Dowd remained as executive director.

“The mistakes were not solely hers,” Idaho state Sen. Fred Martin, a Republican, told New Mexico Watchdog.

Despite saying at the time he was “was very upset when I learned of the contract being issued without approval from the board of directors,” Martin said Monday, “I’m pleased with (Dowd’s) performance here” and went so far as to say Dowd “has done an extremely good job running the exchange.”

Even Rice, who called for Dowd’s dismissal when the story broke, said Monday that Dowd “overall is somebody who is quite capable” and pointed to the success of the Idaho exchange under Dowd’s watch. “We have one of the highest enrollment rates, per capita, nationwide,” Rice said.

An email to Dowd asking for an interview was not returned.

NMHIX board member Dr. Deane Waldman said the board was aware of the flap over the no-bid contract.

“It did not cause any concerns,” Waldman said, describing Dowd as “the implementer, not the decision-maker.”

“The issue was really about making political hay,” Waldman said.

NMHIX officials announced Tuesday that Dowd will earn $199,000 a year and be eligible for a 10 percent performance bonus as part of her two-year contract. Dowd is expected to start in August. Dowd’s salary in Idaho was $175,000.

“We need a real visionary and the board got a sense from her that she could think beyond the lines,” Waldman said.

The New Mexico exchange has been run on an interim basis by Mike Nuñez. “He’s a wonderful manager and we couldn’t have gotten where we’re at without him,” Waldman said.

Contact Rob Nikolewski at rnikolewski@watchdog.org and follow him on Twitter @robnikolewski


After a struggling start, New Mexico yanks Obamacare advertising contract

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Photo from a NHIX commercial

A FAILURE TO COMMUNICATE: After posting disappointing enrollment numbers, the New Mexico Health Insurance Exchange is putting its marketing and advertising account back up for bid.

By Rob Nikolewski │ New Mexico Watchdog

ALBUQUERQUE — After missing many of its targets in the first year of the rollout of the Affordable Care Act in New Mexico, the New Mexico Health Insurance Exchange board is shaking things up.

On Friday, the board announced it’s pulling its $6.2 million advertising and marketing contract from BVK, a firm based in Milwaukee, and putting the contract back up for bid.

“There are lots of clean slates and one of those is marketing,” said Dr. Martin Hickey, director of the NMHIX Marketing, public relations and outreach committee.

The NMHIX board voted unanimously Friday to rebid the contract.

The decision comes after a statewide poll showed that, despite spending $7 million marketing in New Mexico, only 40 percent of respondents knew what the state’s health care exchange did.

BVK is eligible to rebid for the contract. Hickey said as of Friday he had not heard if BVK plans to try again to win back the NMHIX contract.

BVK spokeswoman Annie Holschuh sent an email to New Mexico Watchdog saying, “BVK will have a statement to share in the near future but we decline to comment on the topic at this time.”

“It has been a year of lots of learning,” said Hickey, choosing his words carefully after Friday’s board meeting.

“My belief from the very beginning was that our marketing needed to be focused on boots on the ground and neighbor-to-neighbor contact,” board member Jason Sandel told New Mexico Watchdog. “I think there are a number of studies that show you take the message where people are … Instead, we invested a tremendous amount of money in a television buy and expected a 30- or 60-second television ad to convince somebody to change their lifestyle.”

NMHIX also has a new person in charge. Amy Dowd is the new CEO of the state’s exchange, coming to New Mexico after running the state exchange in Idaho. She replaced interim CEO Mike Nuñez.

Dowd outlined a 60-day plan to make a decision on advertising and marketing, telling the board Friday there will be “heavy weighting of knowledge of New Mexico and knowledge of the Spanish community and Native American tribes.”

Time is a factor since the next open enrollment period for people signing up for individual policies under the ACA — colloquially known as “Obamacare” — starts on November 15.

NMHIX chairman Dr. J.R. Damron told New Mexico Watchdog that NMHIX has about $4 million on hand to spend on advertising and marketing between October and next February 15, when the enrollment period is scheduled to end. Dowd, however, was reluctant to talk about how much money will be spent.

“I’m looking very strategically how we’re going to spend this money,” Dowd told New Mexico Watchdog.

“We’re concerned about the enrollment numbers we had this past year,” said Damron. “We felt like we needed to look at this … and change our business plan.”

Small businesses in New Mexico can sign up for the ACA through NMHIX, but individual policies in the state will have to go through the federal government’s www.healthcare.gov website, which stumbled badly in its national rollout earlier this year.

NMHIX officials have blamed the website’s multiple breakdowns for keeping New Mexico’s enrollment from reaching its goals.

Just before healthcare.gov debuted, NMHIX planned on signing up 83,000 people to individual policies across the state this year. Going into the November open enrollment period, 32,000 had signed up.

In addition, numbers released this spring showed that while 85 percent of those who signed up for individual polices across the country qualified for federal subsidies, just 79 percent of those in New Mexico received subsidies.

Obamacare in New Mexico: Take two

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Photo courtesy of Flickr

WILL IT BE EASIER THIS TIME?: Officials at the New Mexico Health Insurance Exchange are counting on the www.HealthCare.gov website working smoothly this time.

By Rob Nikolewski │ New Mexico Watchdog

SANTA FE — Officials at the New Mexico Health Insurance Exchange are making a number of changes as Year Two of Obamacare rolls out, but one big element remains: individual policies will still go through the same www.HealthCare.gov website that experienced a series of embarrassing mishaps when the Affordable Care Act rolled out last winter.

“I’m hoping the feds do a better job this year,” said Gabriel Parra, staff attorney for Presbyterian Healthcare Services and a member of the NMHIX board. “They can’t go anywhere but up.”

Another NMHIX board member, Jason Sandel, is much more blunt. When asked what grade he would give the ACA’s debut, Sandel said, “An F.”

“We’re dependent upon them and every bit of involvement that I’ve had with the federal government has been a disaster,” Sandel told New Mexico Watchdog after the board wrapped up its recent monthly meeting. “So I’m apprehensive about what the future holds for this open enrollment.”

In little more a month — Nov. 15 to be exact — a 90-day open enrollment period begins for New Mexicans looking to obtain individual ACA health care policies.

While a host of questions surround the second year of the ACA, the largest is whether the HealthCare.gov site can smoothly sign up all the new enrollees the NMHIX board hopes will respond to an upcoming multi-million dollar marketing, advertising and public relations blitz across the state.

“I think it’s prudent for the board to get the most bang for the buck,” said NMHIX board chairman Dr. J.R. Damron. “The bucks we’re talking about (come from) taxes.”

NMHIX officials originally planned to ditch HealthCare.gov after the first year and funnel individuals to New Mexico’s own www.bewellnm.com website, which small businesses in the state use.

But worried that IT issues wouldn’t get resolved in time for the November re-enrollment period, board members voted 11-1 in July to stick with the federal site for one more year.

“We’ve got a year under our belt,” said Dr. Martin Hickey, director of the NMHIX marketing, public relations and outreach committee. “We’ve not only learned from New Mexico, but we’ve learned from other states.”

On the positive side, 165,000 previously uninsured New Mexicans signed up for Medicaid in the past year and 34,200 signed up for individual policies.

But last year’s goal was 83,000 individual policies. After the botched roll-out of healthcare.gov, NMHIX adjusted its goal to 40,000 but still fell short of expectations.

Even though New Mexico is one of the poorest states in the country, the number of enrollees receiving subsidies to reduce their premiums was six points lower than the national average.

To make things worse, a statewide poll commissioned by the board showed that despite a $7 million marketing and advertising campaign to convince New Mexico enrollees to sign up, only 40 percent of respondents even knew what the state’s health care exchange did.

In response, the NMHIX board has put its marketing and advertising contract up for re-bid and hired a new CEO — Amy Dowd, who comes over from Idaho where she won favorable reviews for running the Your Health Idaho exchange.

“I’m looking very strategically how we’re going to spend our money,” Dowd told New Mexico Watchdog.

“We need to work hard to get the uninsured in New Mexico insured,” Damron said. “That is our key element. An emphasis will be on the Hispanic population.”

But staying tied to the HealthCare.gov site means that as the feds go, so goes New Mexico.

“They’re working out the bugs and the cumbersome parts to it so I’m feeling confident that it will work on Nov. 15,” Hickey said.

Sandel, though, admits he’s worried.

“I’m concerned that our success is being based on whether or not they’ll be able to perform,” he said.

Two weeks ago, the General Accounting Office reported “weaknesses remained in the security and privacy protections applied to HealthCare.gov and its supporting systems.”

What’s more, the load in New Mexico figures to be heavier this year. Earlier this week, Blue Cross/Blue Shield of New Mexico sent out notices to 30,000 customers saying their policies were being canceled because they didn’t meet the minimum requirements of Obamacare.

NMHIX officials haven’t disclosed what numbers they hope to reach this time around, but Damron told New Mexico Watchdog the goal is to reduce the percentage of uninsured in New Mexico from 23 percent to less than 10 percent.

“We’re working on it,” Damron said. “It’s not going to happen overnight. It’s a two to five-year process.”

“It’s absolutely a critical year,” Sandel said.

NM Obamacare officials mum on signup goals

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Image from the homepage of the healthcare.gov website

UP TO THE TASK? The federal government is promising states like New Mexico that the www.healthcare.gov website will run smoothly this time

By Rob Nikolewski │ New Mexico Watchdog

SANTA FE — Last year, officials at the New Mexico Health Insurance Exchange predicted 83,000 people would sign up for individual policies during the rollout of the Affordable Care Act, colloquially known as Obamacare.

But the launch of the www.healthcare.gov website was nothing short of disastrous and NMHIX officials later slashed their goal to 40,000.

By the time open enrollment ended in April, 34,200 New Mexicans signed up.

This time around, NMHIX officials aren’t yet making any predictions.

“We don’t have a number at this time,” NMHIX chief executive officer Amy Dowd told New Mexico Watchdog the day before the second round of open enrollment started across the country. “It’s very early in the process to project.”

NMHIX officials may be taking a page out of the playbook of new U.S. Health and Human Services Department Secretary Sylvia Mathews Burwell, who last week announced targets 30 percent lower than predictions made by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. The move led some to speculate the Obama administration wants to set a lower figure to avoid criticism if the CBO number isn’t met.

“There is still a lot of mystery,” Larry Levitt, senior vice president of the Kaiser Family Foundation, told the Washington Post.

Dowd wouldn’t say why NMHIX hasn’t announced its signup goals, saying, “We’re optimistic that we’ll get new enrollments. We haven’t published specific figures.” Dowd did, however, indicate NMHIX may release targeted numbers later.

Saturday marked the start of a 90-day open enrollment period that’s scheduled to end Feb. 15. Small businesses in the state can enroll through the NMHIX website, www.bewellnm.com, but for the second year in a row, individuals who want to sign up for Obamacare coverage must go to the healthcare.gov site to obtain coverage.

“We are told by the feds that there have been a lot of improvements to the federal website and we are optimistic things are going to run a lot smoother this year,” Dowd said.

While potential customers have 90 days to sign up, enrollees must complete the process by Dec. 15 to have their policies take effect by the start of the new year.

That’s not much time and that one month stretch should provide some answers to whether the revamped healthcare.gov website is up to the challenge.

“This is hard,” Burwell said last week. “We will have things that won’t go right. We will have outages. We will have downtime. But the most important thing we can do about that is make sure we are prepared.”

New Mexico may see a surge of applicants because less than two months ago, Blue Cross/Blue Shield of New Mexico sent out notices to 30,000 customers saying their policies were being canceled because they didn’t meet the minimum requirements of the ACA.

NMHIX officials are counting on putting up better numbers by adopting a better marketing plan this time around.

Late last week, the exchange announced that the Albuquerque-based advertising group K2MD, along with three other vendors, won the bid to promote the exchange because of the firm’s “deep knowledge of the New Mexico population, the Hispanic community and Native American outreach.”

The total budget for the four vendors is $6.1 million and about $3 million in total advertising buys will be managed between now and March 31 of next year.

How big will the advertising blitz be?

“We haven’t finalized that yet,” Dowd said. “We’ll make that decision as we go, based on how successful we’re being and how many people we’re reaching.”

Two months ago, the NMIX board yanked its advertising and marketing contract from a firm based in Milwaukee after a statewide poll showed that, despite spending $7 million marketing in New Mexico, only 40 percent of respondents knew what the state’s health care exchange did.

“We’ve tailored our outreach efforts to engage consumers,” Dowd said. “We’re taking a grassroots approach.”

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