I've already laid out, in exhaustive detail, my rationale for projecting that 14.7 million people will select qualified health plans (QHPs) via the various ACA exchanges during the 2016 Open Enrollment Period (11/1/15 - 1/31/16...possibly with another week tacked on in an "overtime" period).

As always, I could very well be dead wrong about this. For all I know, the HHS Dept's far more conservative target range (11.0 - 14.1 million) could prove to be correct, or it could surprise the hell out of everyone and come in closer to the Congressional Budget Office's estimate of 20 million (although that number actually reflects their projection of the average number of people enrolled year-wide, which would require more like 25 million to select a plan by the end of January.

As I noted back in April, the New York Affordable Care Act exchange (NY State of Health) will become the second state (besides Minnesota) to offer a "Basic Health Plan" under a fairly little-reported on provision of the ACA:

The BHP will offer qualified individuals and families a choice of plans from high-quality, private health insurers through NY State of Heath (NYSOH), the state’s official health plan Marketplace. New York State health insurers were invited to offer plans through the BHP when the NYSOH plan invitation was issued today to New York State licensed health insurance companies. The invitation includes requirements for insurer certification and recertification for Qualified Health Plans and Stand-Alone Dental Plans, and for the new Basic Health Program which will start on January 1, 2016. 

When I compared my 2016 Open Enrollment projection (14.7M) against the HHS Department (11.0 - 14.1M), I was operating under the assumption that the Congressional Budget Office was still projecting a whopping 21 million average exchange QHP enrollees per month for 2016 (which would actually require, in practice, more like 25 million people to actually select plans during open enrollment).

Here's what the CBO report from March looked like:

HOWEVER, it turns out that the CBO has revised their projections since then after all...you just have to look carefully for it.

In a New York Times article about the HHS Dept's projection from Friday, Robert Pear states:

I've already stuck my neck out pretty far by projecting that 2016 Open Enrollment ACA Exchange Qualified Health Plan (QHP) Selections will reach 14.7 Million, which is about 4% higher than the HHS Dept's high-bar estimate (and 33% higher than their low-bar estimate).

While I'm at it, I might as well try and project the rate of enrollments. Again, remember that this is not about how many people actually have their enrollment policy effectuated, nor is it about how many are still enrolled at the end of 2016; this is purely about how many select private policies via the ACA exchanges, which is the heart & soul of this website (after all, it's called "ACASignups", not "ACA Effectuated Enrollments at the End of the Calendar Year").

Hey, remember this from March 20, 2014?

Gaba In, Gaba Out: WaPo Hails 'Nonpolitical' Blogger Spouting Rosy Obamacare Numbers

GIGO: Garbage In, Garbage Out.

In computer science, GIGO means that a faulty input will result in a faulty output. Perhaps GIGO in the specific area of Obamacare enrollment projects should be Gaba In, Gaba Out since many leftwing sites are currently singing the praises of one Charles Gaba, a blogger who is projecting incredibly high Obamacare numbers. And now the Washington Post's Wonkblog writer, Jason Millman, is the latest person to be enthralled by the very convenient Obamacare numbers served up by Gaba. Here is Millman singing his Gaba paean:

The Obama administration on Monday announced that 5 million people had signed up for Obamacare exchange plans. Hours earlier, a self-employed Web developer from Michigan had already predicted the milestone would be hit on Monday.

UPDATE: 1/13/15: I've modified my final #OE3 projection; I'm now projecting a range of anywhere between 13.8 - 14.2 million (but I'll still be judging myself based on how close I came to the 14.7M figure, however.)

And the hits keep on coming:

That's 2 in one day, the 8th to fold to date and the 4th one which can be specifically connected the Risk Corridor Disaster:

Health Republic Insurance Not Offering Plans in 2016

Lake Oswego, Ore. (Oct. 16, 2015) –Health Republic Insurance, a non-profit health insurance carrier, announced today that it will not offer small group or individual plans on or off exchange in 2016. All current Health Republic individual and small group policies remain in full effect through the end of 2015. Members can continue to see plan providers and claims will be paid under plan terms.

The federal government recently announced it would pay insurance companies only 12.6% of their risk corridor receivable for the 2014 plan year and has created industry-wide concern about when, or if the 2015 risk corridor would be paid.

As I noted in the update to my post on the "Transitional Policy" decision a few days ago, the ACA's CO-OP program had a lot going against it from the get-go:

The program has been under siege from the start, including from the insurance industry. Before the law’s passage, government grants to help them get going were switched to loans. None of that money could go for advertising — a wounding rule for new insurers that needed to attract customers. Moreover, the amount available was cut from $10 billion to $6 billion and then later, as part of the administration’s budget deals with congressional Republicans, to $2.4 billion. Federal health officials abandoned plans for a co-op in every state.

So, let's see here: You're trying to create start-ups to enter an existing, mature market which is already dominated by major, behemoth-sized competitors which have almost unlimited funds. Naturally it makes total sense to a) make the seed money a loan with a tight payback time table; b) prevent them from advertising in a saturated market; and c) slash their budget by 75%.

In spite of all of this, and even in spite of any impact from the decision to allow relatively healthy, low-risk enrollees to stay on transitional policies (which the CO-OPs had none of, since they were brand-new) through their competitors, 23 out of 24 of the CO-OPs did manage to survive the first full year (CoOportunity of Iowa/Nebraska didn't even make it that far), and a few of them (Community Health Options of Maine and New Hampshire, as well as (last I heard) Consumers' Choice Health Plan of South Carolina) actually do quite well the first year.

Hold on tight, this is gonna be a big one; it covers stories dating back several weeks, so some of these might be completely irrelevant at this point, but...

• Obama signs 14th bill making changes to Obamacare

• Kreidler statement on President Obama signing the PACE Act

• Obamacare’s Medicaid Expansion Is Helping The Uninsured — Where It’s Allowed To

• What State Policies Best Foster Insurance Market Competition?

• Analysis of 2016 Premium Changes in the Affordable Care Act’s Health Insurance Marketplaces

Minnesota quietly chugs along...