On the Third Hand: California numbers

I’ve been looking up a lot of health insurance data in the past few weeks and keep running into a strange problem: An interesting report will have information some indicator or another for 49 states and the District of Columbia — and an asterisk where some or all of the California data ought to be.

Or, data in the California spot, but an asterisk on the data explaining that the figures given there are incomplete.

See also: 10 top health insurers report Q2 enrollment

The problem is that California has had its insurance companies reporting health insurance data in filings that go to the National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC), and its managed care companies reporting similar data in filings that go to the California Department of Managed Health Care but not to the NAIC.

The result is that many analysts trying to keep tabs on the U.S. health care finance system end up having holes where the California health maintenance organization (HMO) providers and HMO enrollees ought to be.