Massachusetts: 251K QHPs thru 12/18 (12% above my final target!)

I noted a couple of weeks ago that Massachusetts has a unique methodology for reporting their ACA exchange enrollments. For one thing, they only officially count people who sign up for policies as "enrollees" after they've made their first monthly premium payment. In addition, like some other state exchanges, they "pre-renew" their current enrollees before the December deadline, and then reduce the official number from there as some people choose not to renew their coverage. As a result, instead of their "QHP selection" tally increasing, it actually starts out huge and then drops a bit as the enrollment period continues.

As a result, instead of 260,275 QHP selections, their number is a bit lower today:

Through Sunday, the 18th: 224,211 2017 enrollments. Plus, an additional 26,868 plans selected but unpaid at this point.

Add these up and that's 251,079. While this is about 9,200 lower than the earlier figure, it's still well ahead of last year's 214K and is still 12% higher than my own OE4 target of 224,000. In an absolute worst-case scenario, even if not a single one of those 27K people paid up, MA would still have hit my target...and there's still 41 days to go in the enrollment period.

While some states may be coming up short, Massachusetts is kicking butt this year...even if it ends up being the last for the ACA.