Originally posted 1/05/2025

Texas has ~3.9 MILLION residents enrolled in ACA exchange plans, 95% of whom are currently subsidized. I estimate they also have perhaps ~67,000 unsubsidized off-exchange enrollees.

Combined, that's over 4.0 MILLION Texans, although although assuming the national average 6.6% net enrollment attrition rate applies, current enrollment would be back down to more like ~3.8 million statewide.

I don't want to get out over my skis here; a single Senator saying that she supports something in an interview is a far cry from them actually voting to do so, especially when you'd need several more members of both the House and Senate (including the leadership of both chambers) to even hold that vote.

Even so, this is still a pretty significant development, given how thin the odds are of the improved subsidies included by the IRA getting extended are at the moment.

This is from an interview with Alaska GOP Senator Lisa Murkwoski published by the Alaska Beacon yesterday:

Nathaniel Herz: On the specific issue of the enhanced tax credits for the premiums for the individual marketplace health insurance plans — it seems like there is a real question about whether those continue...

In August 2022, President Biden signed the Inflation Reduction Act (passed with into law with purely Democratic votes).

While the IRA included a long list of landmark provisions, in addition to the critical upgraded ACA premium subsidies which are unfortunately set to expire at the end of 2025, other healthcare-related ones include:

BeWell NM, New Mexico's ACA exchange, has an Open Enrollment Dashboard updated weekly:

As of Dec. 29th, 2024:

• Auto-Reenrollments: 39,826
• Active Enrollments: 19,216
• New Enrollments: 6,644
• TOTAL: 65,686

What's more noteworthy is that when compared against the same point last year, New Mexico's 2025 ACA enrollment total is dramatically higher.

Not only is New Mexico's exchange enrollment up a whopping 29% vs. the same point last year, it's actually already 16% higher than the 2024 OEP's final total of 56,472!

The Maryland Health Benefit Exchange hasn't released any press releases since Oct. 31st, so the only official 2025 Open Enrollment Period (OEP) data I have for the state is from this snapshot report issued by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) back on Dec. 4th, which placed Maryland enrollment at just 30,270 people as of Nov. 23rd...plus another 185,438 current enrollees who were categorized as having been automatically re-enrolled, for a total of 215,708 QHP selections as of early December.

By comparison, by the end of the 2024 OEP, Maryland reported a total of 213,895 QHP selections, so it certainly looks like the Old Line State is running ahead of last year.

With that in mind, this article from WTOP News sounds about right, although the exact phrasing of some of the numbers make it a little confusing:

via CoverME.gov:

Plan Selection Snapshot

The Maine Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) Office of the Health Insurance Marketplace (OHIM) will release biweekly updates on plan selections through CoverME.gov, Maine’s Health Insurance Marketplace.  

Plan selections provide a snapshot of activity by new and returning consumers who have selected a plan for 2025. “Plan selections” become “enrollments” once consumers have paid their first monthly premium to begin insurance. These numbers are subject to change as consumers may modify or cancel plans after their initial selection.   

The deadline to select a plan for coverage beginning January 1, 2025 is December 15, 2024. Consumers who select a plan between December 16, 2024 and January 15, 2025 will have coverage beginning February 1, 2025. 

via the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS):

September 2024 Key Findings

Medicaid and CHIP Enrollment

• In September 2024, 79.4 million individuals were enrolled in Medicaid and CHIP.
  • 72.2 million individuals were enrolled in Medicaid, and 7.2 million individuals were enrolled in CHIP.
  • 41.7 million adults were enrolled in Medicaid, and there were 37.6 million Medicaid child and CHIP enrollees.

Medicaid and CHIP Applications Received

Originally posted 12/27/24

South Carolina has around ~632,000 residents enrolled in ACA exchange plans, 95% of whom are currently subsidized. I estimate they also have another ~36,000 unsubsidized off-exchange enrollees.

Combined, that's ~668,000 people, although assuming the national average 6.6% net enrollment attrition rate applies, current enrollment would be back down to more like 623,000 statewide.

Every month for years now, the Centers for Medicare & Medicare Services (CMS) has published a monthly press release with a breakout of total Medicare, Medicaid & CHIP enrollment; the most recent one was posted in late February, and ran through November 2022.

Since December 2022, however, they haven't sent out the normal press release; instead, they included a brief note leading to a Medicaid/CHIP data slideshow , along with another note leading to their new Medicare Monthly Enrollment database.

In any event, according to the spreadsheet I exported, as of September 2024:

ORIGINAL STORY & PRIOR UPDATES HERE.

(sigh) Goddammit. This isn't terribly surprising but it's still pretty disappointing.

As laid out in my prior (repeatedly updated) story about this ongoing saga, the eligibility of up to 100,000 or so uninsured DACA recipients to enroll in healthcare coverage via the ACA marketplaces has been bouncing back & forth for some time now. President Biden originally made a rule change to make them eligible to enroll back in May 2024. Unfortunately, earlier this fall a coalition of 19 Republican state Attorneys General filed a lawsuit to block the Biden Administration from enrolling DACA recipients, and the courts have ping-ponged their status a few times ever since.

Things were looking good a week or so ago when the 8th Circuit Court issued a stay on the injunction...but I just got the most recent ruling from the 8th Circuit Court, and it's bad news: