As I wrote in October, the Health Benefit Exchange (HBE) had requested $67 million for 2015-17 (in addition to the $80 million that had already been appropriated for the biennium).

Gov. Inslee’s budget proposal would provide that amount: $33.3 million in federal funds, $13.8 million from the state general fund, and $20.2 million in the HBE account. The federal and state general fund amounts would be for Medicaid-related costs, while the funds from the HBE account would be “to maintain current operations,improve customer experience, retain current enrollees, and generate an additional 200,000 health plan enrollments.” (For more on the governor’s budget, in terms of the near general fund-state plus opportunity pathways account, see here.)

Additionally, the AP reported earlier this week that the HBE has won a $27 million federal grant to improve its website. (They had asked for $42 million.) Meanwhile:

Exchange staff also reported that re-enrollments to date were lagging behind expectations. According to Pam MacEwan, chief of staff, as of Dec. 31, 79,000 of approximately 130,000 account holders had re-enrolled for 2015. “The numbers continued to bump up but it is not at our expectation,” she said.

MacEwan did note that some consumers might be taking longer to re-enroll because there are indications that more consumers than expected are switching to other qualified health plans. Also, the holidays might have caused some consumers to put off enrolling. Still, she noted, most other states “seem to be clicking along fine with enrollments. Right now we need to get these folks enrolled.”

Exchange staff also said that some consumers may have been confused by messages that went out from carriers mistakenly indicating that if consumers wanted to keep their current account they didn’t need to take any action.

That’s not true. Consumers need to contact the exchange to renew or change plans.

I wrote about the latest enrollment data here.