Arizona reaches 75 percent of Obamacare enrollment projection for 2014

Media website Vox has mapped out data using an Urban Institute report on Affordable Care Act numbers by state, and Arizona is fairing about in the middle when it comes to new health insurance sign-ups.

Vox reports the nation beat enrollment projections by more than 15 percent, with some states — Vermont, Florida and California — wildly surpassing predictions, and others — South Dakota, Hawaii and Massachusetts — falling well short of the mark.

It’s a similar story for Obamacare’s target populations: Individual market shoppers and uninsured people who don’t qualify for employer-based insurance or public health plans. The nation, overall, reached about a quarter of this population. But Massachusetts reached only 8 percent, while Vermont netted 73.5 percent.

Vox says state-based insurance exchanges seemed to have fared better than the federal exchanges, “which were run by the federal government after states refused to pick up the task.” However, some states — such as Oregon — dropped the ball when running their own exchanges.

The numbers also don’t tell us the health of the new signups and how many people have actually paid their first premiums, which is the final step to obtaining insurance. Both those factors are important: healthier insurance pools can keep health-care spending and premiums down, and signups obviously don’t matter if they don’t translate to purchased insurance policies.

The Urban Institute report used for Vox’s graphics shows Arizona has reached just over 120,000 sign-ups under the ACA — which accounts for exactly 75 percent of 2014 end-of-year projection. A chart in the report shows the state got a huge push in sign-ups from March 1 to April 19 — as people likely added a plan before filing their taxes.

Out of the total demographic that the ACA is trying to reach in Arizona, 21.5 percent of those individuals have signed up for an Obamacare plan, the report shows.