Colorado is far behind health insurance goal

Enrollment numbers through Colorado’s state-run health insurance exchange are barely half of the state’s worst-case projection.

At its lowest-level it expected about 11,000 people to sign up. But it’s nowhere close.

So far 6,000 people have signed up through the state exchange.

“The first few days after it went live, they were definitely having some issues so they shut it down, fixed them and put it right back up. So after that first week we haven’t been having any issues with it,” said Isabel Guevara, an Enrollment Services Trainer with Peak Vista.

The website is up and working.

Meanwhile other states like California have over 2,000 people enrolling ever day.

So why isn’t that happening in Colorado?

“One of the things that has to happen in order for someone to complete enrollment through the website, is you first have to be denied for any state assistance program- so Medicaid,” explains Guevara.

This is what could be bogging down Colorado enrollment numbers. It’s an application 12 pages long. What’s more, you might have to wait up to 45 days for it to process before you can enroll on the state exchange.

“My understanding of those numbers are the number of enrollment that’s been completed. So there could be a lot of accounts created on the website that are just waiting for that denial, that are incomplete and waiting,” said Guevara.

More than 71,000 people have accounts on the exchange. An indication there will be more shoppers eventually.

But for now, many have to wait to buy.

“I think it’s something that requires some attention, whether it be just because it’s the online website that’s having issues, or maybe the overall process of how someone can get that denial. This is new at a federal level at a state level so this is just part of the hiccups we’re going to be able to fix,” said Guevara.

Enrollment supervisors think Colorado enrollment numbers will go up at the beginning of the year.