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