BOOM! There it is: Pres. Obama announces 8M Exchange QHPs

And there you have it:

President Barack Obama announced Thursday that 8 million Americans had enrolled in private health coverage under Obamacare.

"The bottom line is the share of Americans with health insurance is up," he said from the White House briefing room. "This thing is working."

In a fact sheet released simultaneously, the White House said 28 percent of those enrollees were ages 18 to 34, the key "young and healthy" population, up from 25 percent at the end of February.

Details to follow as they're released (where's that HHS report, darn it???)

One thing to note: The NY Times is reporting that it's 35% "under 35". Presumably the 7% difference between the two numbers are made up of children under 18:

• under 18: 7%
• 18-34: 28%

UPDATE: A few sources have said that Pres. Obama gave the OFF-exchange QHP enrollment figure as 5 million. That's actually the number I was estimating for quite some time, until more recent data made it sound like it was closer to 7.8 million.

I'll have to look at the exact quote and context that he gave before I can come to any conclusions; "5M" could be a minimum, or it could be a fairly close tally.

If it turns out that I have to lop 2.8M off of the off-exchange tally, I'll have no problem doing so, 

UPDATE: OK, I've been given the link to the official White House ACA Fact Sheet:

HEALTH CARE BY THE NUMBERS

• 8 million people signed up for private insurance in the Health Insurance Marketplace. For states that have Federally-Facilitated Marketplaces, 35 percent of those who signed up are under 35 years old and 28 percent are between 18 and 34 years old, virtually the same youth percentage that signed up in Massachusetts in their first year of health reform.

• 3 million young adults gained coverage thanks to the Affordable Care Act by being able to stay on their parents plan.

• 3 million more people were enrolled in Medicaid and CHIP as of February, compared to before the Marketplaces opened. Medicaid and CHIP enrollment continues year-round.

• 5 million people are enrolled in plans that meet ACA standards outside the Marketplace, according to a CBO estimate. When insurers set premiums for next year, they are required to look at everyone who enrolled in plans that meet ACA standards, both on and off the Marketplace.

• 5.7 million people will be uninsured in 2016 because 24 States have not expanded Medicaid.

This is all fantastic news (um...except for the last point, of course, which sucks). The only nagging issue is the 5M off-exchange QHP number; as noted above, I had this at around 4.6M for a long time (560K documented + at least 4M more). I recently bumped my estimate up to 7.8M based on the RAND Corp. study, Larry Levitt's "more off-exchange than on" and my own gut feeling about it, but the CBO is now giving a more cautious estimate of 5 million.

However, contributor Ken Kelly notes that this 5M figure is specifically worded as "plans that meet ACA standards" and includes a note specifically calling out the combined risk-pool. It's possible (probable?) that the 7.8M figure included other policies from companies which didn't participate in the exchanges at all:

@charles_gaba Off-exchange policies sold by companies that are not in the exchanges at all, for example, are not in the exchange risk pools.

— Ken Kelly (@_KJKelly) April 17, 2014