Consumers who have been buying individual health coverage online since enrollment period extensions ended are paying about as much as they paid for coverage during the official open enrollment period.
Managers of eHealth Inc., the company that runs the eHealthInsurance.com web-based health insurance brokerage, report in on line index based on their own sales results that the typical consumer who bought coverage Thursday was a 33-year-old who agreed to pay $264 per month for bronze-level coverage.
A typical three-member family agreed to pay $678 per month for bronze-level coverage.
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The eHealth data goes back to Oct. 15. Among eHealth customers, bronze-level coverage has been the most popular option for every day of data in the database.
The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act individual private exchange plan open enrollment period originally was supposed to last from Oct. 1, 2013, through March 31, 2014. In most states, exchanges made a widely available enrollment extension period available until April 15. Nevada is letting residents enroll in its exchange at least until May 30.
At eHealth, the average price for individual coverage started at about $370 per month in mid-October, fell steadily to about $275 per month in early January, then flattened out at around $275 per month from January through early April.
In early April, during the enrollment extension period, the average premium paid fell to about $243.
Since then, the average has jumped back up to about $265.
The company has no data for some markets, such as Maine and the District of Columbia.
In the markets where it does have data, the most expensive markets have been Alaska, New York in Wyoming.
In Alaska, the most expensive state, the average for individual coverage has been $452 per month, with a range of $145 to $1,238.
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Allison Bell
Allison Bell, a senior reporter at ThinkAdvisor and BenefitsPRO, previously was an associate editor at National Underwriter Life & Health. She has a bachelor's degree in economics from Washington University in St. Louis and a master's degree in journalism from the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University. She can be reached through X at @Think_Allison.
