STATE BY STATE: 21 states running ahead of projections, 6 running behind

I launched the "State by State" chart feature towards the end of the 2015 Open Enrollment period last time around, and it proved to be pretty popular, so I've brought it back this year.

It's important to note that I'm still missing data from some state exchanges; I have bupkis from DC, Kentucky, New York or Vermont. I also only have partial data from others (California includes new enrollees only, while several other states only have data for the first couple of weeks).

With all those caveats out of the way, here's where things stand. Just like last year:

• The BLUE LINES represent the percentage of QHP selections each state had achieved as of 12/26 for most states compared to my best guess at their reasonable proportion of the 12.6 million people the HHS Dept. expects to select plans nationally. In some cases (California, Colorado, Connecticut, Idaho, Maryland, Minnesota and Vermont), I've used the official target number for that state, according to the exchange itself. For other states, I took a proportionate number based on the HHS Dept's 12.6 million total.

• The GREEN LINES, meanwhile, represent MY personal projection of how many people I expect to select QHPs during open enrollment this year. Again, with the exception of CA, CO, CT, ID, MD, MN & VT, none of these targets are official.

• Finally, I've included a vertical RED LINE. This represents the point I think each state should have been as of December 26th (around 11.2 million total, or 76% of the 14.7 million total I'm projecting nationally by January 31st).

There are 21 states running at least 5 points ahead of where I expected them to be as of December 19th (ie, 81% of my projections or more):

• Massachusetts, Maryland, Utah, South Dakota, Rhode Island, Oklahoma, Oregon, Tennessee, Montana, Alaska, North Carolina, New Hampshire, Nevada, Idaho, Wisconsin, Nebraska, Wyoming, Delaware, Iowa, Louisiana and Missouri.

Unfortunately, there are also, 6 states are running at least 5 points behind where I expected them to be at this point (ie, 71% or lower):

• Illinois, Indiana, Mississippi, New Mexico, Kansas and Texas.

While there are over three times as many states running ahead as behind at the moment, it's important to note that the "behind" column includes major states like Illinois and especially Texas, which is about 200K lower than I was figuring.

Again, California, DC, Kentucky, New York and Vermont can't really be counted at all because there's either no data available at all yet (or only very partial data in the case of CA).

Finally, there are 17 states which are running within +/- 5% of where I expected them to be at this point:

• Virginia, Michigan, Connecticut, Arkansas, Hawaii, Alabama, North Dakota, Maine, Washington, West Virginia, Florida, Ohio, Georgia, Arizona, South Carolina, New Jersey and Pennsylvania.

Overall, I've confirmed 9.6 million QHP selections nationally, but am pretty sure there's an additional 1.6 million already out there, likely as follows:

• California: Around 1.1 million renewals (in addition to the 197K new additions they've confirmed)
• New York: Perhaps 300K renewals + new
• Kentucky: Perhaps 90K renewals + new
• DC: Perhaps 17K renewals + new
• Vermont: Perhaps 25K
• Other state-based exchanges: Perhaps 70K collectively for missing days thru 12/26

(click the chart to load a full-sized version in a new browser window)