President Biden announces record-breaking 21.3 million QHP enrollees (22.6 million w/BHPs)

Hmmm...OK, I got out over my skis a bit, but this is still an amazing announcement:

Statement by President Joe Biden on the Record-Breaking 2024 Open Enrollment Period Under the Affordable Care Act

Today, we broke another record when it comes to lowering costs and ensuring Americans have access to quality, affordable healthcare: 21.3 million Americans have signed up for health coverage through Affordable Care Act marketplaces. That means 9 million more people have gained coverage under the law - and peace of mind - since I took office. It’s no accident. My actions to protect the Affordable Care Act and lower premiums continue to make a big difference. And the American people have made it clear: they don’t want the Affordable Care Act weakened and repealed – they want it strengthened and protected.

We need to build on the progress we’ve made by making lower premiums permanent.  But Republicans in Congress have a different vision. Their recent budget would get rid of the improvements I signed into law, raising costs for millions of people. Over the last decade, extreme Republicans in Congress have blocked efforts to lower health care costs, and they’re still trying to end the Affordable Care Act, just as my predecessor tried and failed to do. Repealing the Affordable Care Act would throw these 21 million people off their coverage, and end Medicaid coverage for millions more. It would return to the days when insurance companies could rip Americans off by denying coverage based on pre-existing conditions, charge women more than men, and make older adults pay astronomical health care premiums based on their age. We must not and will not go back.

If the extreme Republicans in Congress get their way, millions of families would face skyrocketing health care costs or lose their health care altogether. I won’t let it happen on my watch, and I’ll keep fighting to bring down health care and prescription drug costs.

When you add the ~1.3 million Basic Health Plan (BHP) enrollees in Minnesota & New York, that comes to a combined total of over 22.6 million.

The hard total and state by state breakout haven't been posted yet, but here's how I came up with my own final projection, which was a bit higher, ranging from 21.6M - 23.1M Qualified Health Plans (QHPs), plus the 1.3 million BHPs.

Essentially, I took the total announced for each state through December 23rd (20.35 million), then used the additional enrollments since then reported by most of the state-based exchanges to come up with a daily national average. Based on this I concluded that the final total as of the end of January would be aroundn 21.6 million QHPs if the federal exchange states followed a similar post-12/23 pattern to the state-based exchanges, or as high as 23.1 million assuming the federal exchange states continued to outpace the state exchanges by nearly a 3:1 ratio.

It turned out that the former (lower) range was a better fit. There will still be some stray enrollments tacked on from the state-based exchanges which have deadlines later than January 16th (five states are still keeping it open through the end of January, in fact), but at most it sounds like it will come in at perhaps 21.4 million QHPs in the end.