BREAKING: Vermont enrolls 20x as many on Day One as HC.gov did last year!

An hour or so ago I posted this tweet from HuffPost's Jeffrey Young, who writes:

HealthCare.Gov processed 23,000 completed applications during the first eight hours, @SecBurwell says. pic.twitter.com/COAJpKFftV

— Jeffrey Young (@JeffYoung) November 15, 2014

Unfortunately, I'm not sure whether "processed completed applications" means actual enrollments or just accounts created. Presumably HHS will provide better clarity on this sort of language (and quickly) going forward. Plus, of course, a single policy enrollment could have 2, 3 or more people in a household.

However, I'm happy to report the very first official enrollment update is also already available, and it's out of Vermont, one of the states with a highly-troubled exchange last time around!

Hold on to your hats, here it is:

Vermont Health Connect, Vermont’s health insurance marketplace, kicked off the Open Enrollment period at 5 a.m. this morning.

...“As of 11:30 this morning, we have processed 120 renewals and 32 new applications,” said Miller. “The system is operating as expected, we’re promptly dealing with minor issues that pop up, and we look forward to continuing to help Vermonters access health coverage.”

WOO-HOO!! That's at least 120 people in the first 6.5 hours! (Again, I'm not sure what "processed new applications" means yet, so I'm being cautious...)

This is sort of like Presidential elections where Dixville Notch, that tiny town in New Hampshire always reports on the results of their dozen or so residents at midnight on Election Day.

Even so, consider this: On the very first day of the first ACA enrollment period, Healthcare.Gov, which covered 2/3 of the country, only successfully enrolled 6 people.

That means that in just 6.5 hours, Vermont has already enrolled 20x as many people for 2015 than HC.gov did in their first 24 hours. Just sayin'...

UPDATE: OK, make that 201 renewals as of 1pm; that's 33.5x as many! ;)