Maryland Health Connection shoppers are considering the alternatives to buying health insurance from the state’s dominant insurer, CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield.
A total of 23,683 people had bought private health plans for 2016 through the state-run health exchange as of Nov. 22. With 59 percent of enrollees as of Nov. 11, CareFirst is still attracting the most business from the exchange. But early enrollment results presented Monday at an exchange board meeting show smaller insurers are gaining market share.
About 23 percent of enrollees so far have chosen Kaiser Permanente health plans. Another 10 percent went with UnitedHealthcare and 6 percent picked Evergreen Health Co-op.
By comparison, CareFirst closed out the exchange’s 2015 enrollment season with just under 80 percent of enrollees. That was down from CareFirst’s commanding 94 percent share of 2014 exchange enrollees.
These numbers are telling of the more competitive prices shoppers will find through the exchange this year. Kaiser and UnitedHealthcare, two insurers who have seen an uptick in market share according to early data, have some of the lowest priced plans available.
But it’s too early in the 2016 open enrollment season to draw conclusions from less than a month’s worth of data.
Open enrollment began Nov. 1 and runs through Jan. 31.
Date: November 23, 2015