New features added to The Graph: Confirmed QHPs & 12/08 projection

If you take a look at The Graph this evening, you'll notice two small additions: First, now that the confirmed QHP selections are large enough to actually be visible, I've added them as a permanent feature (it'll be jaggy due to the staggered data release schedule of the various exchanges, especially HC.gov). Second, just for the hell of it, I've decided to add a rough projection for the point I expect total QHPs to hit the 2 million point: December 8th. 

That would leave just 1 week to add a whopping 5 million people if my "7M by the 15th" projection is to also prove accurate. For comparison, last spring around 2 million people enrolled in the last 16 days of March (plus another 940K during the 15 day April "overtime" period), so it may sound insane to think that 5 million can be enrolled in just 1 week...and if it wasn't for the "autorenewal" factor, I'd agree.

However, I'm operating on the assumption that roughly 4 million current enrollees (in the 45 states which are set up for autorenewals) will simply do nothing whatsoever and automatically get renewed all in one shot on the 15th.

I don't know how HHS or the state exchanges plan on reporting that...they might just have a sudden dramatic increase in the total number, or they might list them as a separate category. Anyway, if I'm correct about 4 million autorenewals, that means the number of "active" enrollments/renewals would only have to total around 1 million more in that last week before the 12/15 deadline is reached, which is clearly doable based on last spring's performance.

Anyway, we'll know more once the 2nd weekly HHS numbers are out. If the renewals-to-new ratio stays at roughly 50/50, that should mean around a half a million people have already manually renewed (out of 6.7 million total), leaving a pool of just 6.2 million to potentially auto-renew.