What I expect to be announced today...maybe.

Today should be a big day in ACA enrollment news. It's the deadline for January enrollment in 2 more states (Massachusetts and Washington State). More to the point, the HHS Dept. is expected to release their 5th weekly "snapshot" report. This should be a big one, since it runs through 12/19, meaning it includes the big December 15th deadline which impacted all 37 states being run through HC.gov this year.

I don't know whether they'll just give the weekly numbers (through Friday the 19th) or if they'll also give a 12/15 number (remember, either one would be for HC.gov only, not including the 14 state-based exchanges).

I also don't know how they plan on reporting the millions of autorenewals which should have kicked in on Tuesday the 16th. If the snapshot runs through the 19th, they may be included in the "snapshot" total. Then again, they may be listed separately, or not at all. For all I know, some will be included but not others (it's possible that they've only processed a portion of them).

In other words, while I expect the reported HC.gov total through the 19th to be around 5.83 million QHP selections, that assumes that all autorenewals via the federal exchange are included. If they aren't, that number could be way "off" even if it proves accurate once all the dust settles.

It's also possible that instead of (or in addition to) the simple "weekly snapshot", HHS might even come out with the first fully-detailed monthly report like they did last year, which breaks the numbers out by state. If so, today will be very busy indeed.

Of course, even if they do so, I'm not sure if it will cover the full first month (11/15 - 12/15), which would make sense, or if it will cover the calendar month (11/15 - 11/30), which would be just plain irritating given that over 3 more weeks will have passed.

If they do release a full report (with state exchanges included), I expect the total to be around 1.24 million through 11/30 or 4.7 million through 12/15.

Anyway, it should be another frazzling day here at ACA Signups Central...

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