State exchanges enroll more consumers than federal marketplace

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Apparently, it's good to be an insurer selling plans on state-run health insurance exchanges. As federally operated exchanges have been beset by technical glitches, the 14 state-run versions are experiencing a smoother enrollment process.

"Individual state operations are more adaptable," Alan Weil, executive director of the nonpartisan group National Academy for State Health Policy, told The New York Times. "That does not mean that states get everything right. But they can respond more quickly to solve problems as they arise."

Daniel Mendelson, CEO of Avalere Health, agrees. "On balance, the state exchanges are doing better than the federal exchange. The federal exchange has, for all practical purposes, been impenetrable. Systems problems are preventing any sort of meaningful engagement," he told the Times.

The particularly successful states experiencing a large and steady number of enrollments--without many glitches--include California, Connecticut, Kentucky, New York and Rhode Island. New York exchange officials said 40,000 people signed up for a health plan last week, the Associated Press reported.

In California, meanwhile, officials said more than 27,000 people have created accounts and partially completed an application while more than 16,000 applications were completed last week, reported the Sacramento Bee.

And Connecticut boasted people younger than 35 years old accounted for almost 33 percent of its roughly 1,200 applications, a key demographic insurers hope to enroll to help offset increased costs, according to the Connecticut Mirror.

To learn more:
- read the New York Times article
- check out the Associated Press article
- see the Sacramento Bee article
- read the Connecticut Mirror article

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