CareSource says 75% of ACA customers have paid premiums.

May 08--Dayton-based CareSource is among a number of large health insurers who said recently that most of their new Affordable Care Act customers have made their first premium payments, undermining critics who claim ACA enrollment figures are misleading because many enrollees haven't made the necessary payments to activate coverage.

The Obama administration says 8 million people, including more than 154,000 Ohioans, have signed up for private health insurance through health care marketplaces created by the president's signature health care law.

Federal officials don't track premium payments, but some of the nation's biggest insurers have said their ACA paid rates are at or above expectations.

"More than 26,000 CareSource Just4Me members, or 75 percent, have paid their premiums out of 35,000 enrolled, and this nearly doubles our initial projections," said Scott Streator, vice president of the health insurance marketplace for Dayton-based CareSource.

Streator said 60 percent of CareSource's Just4Me enrollment occurred from March 1 through mid-April, and the company is still collecting first month's premiums for those who enrolled in late March or April. He said he expects the paid rate soon to reach 85 percent.

The outlook for CareSource mirrors ACA enrollment trends at WellPoint, Aetna and Blue Cross Blue Shield, three of the largest health insurers in the country and competitors in Ohio's health insurance marketplace.

Aetna reported payment rates in "the low- to mid-80 percent range" in testimony prepared for a congressional hearing Wednesday. Wellpoint said the rate was as high as 90 percent for those whose premium had come due, the company said in its own testimony. And the Health Care Service Corporation, which sells Blue Cross Blue Shield plans in five states, pegged the rate at 83 percent or above.

The figures were in line with what individual insurers have said on earnings calls with analysts and elsewhere in recent weeks.

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