300,000 stopped paying for health exchange plans in second quarter

Nearly 300,000 people who obtained coverage though HealthCare.gov and state exchanges stopped paying their premiums between March and June of this year, according to data from the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

As of June 30, about 9.9 million consumers had paid for coverage — which means they had an active policy. That figure is down from 10.2 million consumers who had indicated they wanted to purchase coverage as of March 31.

Mississippi and Georgia, the two states with the most anti-Affordable Care Act political leadership, saw the greatest losses, with both seeing decreases of 8%. Arizona, Indiana, Florida, North Carolina and Pennsylvania saw decreases of 7%. On the flip side, Massachusetts saw an increase between the two periods of 26%.

Despite the losses, CMS notes it is still above its enrollment target of 9.1 million for the end of 2015.

CMS has also noticed a drop in the number of people receiving an advance premium tax credit. There were 8.3 million receiving the credit at the end of June compared with 8.7 million at the end of March.

Virgil Dickson writes for Modern Healthcare, a sister publication of Business Insurance.