On Thursday, both Richard Mayhew and myself (as well as others via Twitter) thoroughly debunked American Enterprise Institute Fellow Scott Gottlieb (MD)'s incredibly misleading tweet about the number of ACA exchange enrollments.

Well, today he's decided to double down:

1.8% of the U.S. Population sign up for #Obamacare through Healthcare.Gov by the end of open enrollment; 6M Enrollees.

— Scott Gottlieb, MD (@ScottGottliebMD) December 20, 2015

Wow. The level of derp here is astonishing, and Gottlieb is clearly trolling, but what the hell:

A week or so ago, the Washington exchange released their November numbers, reporting 123,000 QHP selections through 11/30.

Yesterday they issued a mid-December update; the total number is now up to over 150,000:

The upcoming deadline coincides with the biggest surge in sign-ups seen during the current enrollment period. Since the start of the month more than 27,000 customers have selected plans for coverage starting Jan. 1, bringing the total number of those selecting coverage since the start of open enrollment to over 150,000.

In all the fuss & bother of this afternoon's huge HC.gov enrollment announcement, I nearly forgot about one other important tidbit. Fortunately, Jeffrey Young of the Huffington Post caught it: (and thanks to commenter mic08n64 for the reminder):

The enrollment total is likely to increase in the coming days because administration officials are still working with about 1 million people who weren't able to get through to the call center or website near the deadline and left contact information with the exchange.

There's two important things to keep in mind about this number:

NOTE: Today is October 1st, 2016, the 3rd anniversary of the disastrous launch of HealthCare.Gov. To mark the occasion, I'm dusting off this post from last December.

There were a lot of numbers tossed around in today's big HealthCare.Gov enrollment news, but I want to focus on just one number in particular:

600,000.

Six hundred thousand people actively enrolled in private healthcare policies on Tuesday, December 15, 2015 by using HealthCare.Gov.

Forget about the cumulative total for a moment. Forget about the auto-renewals still to be added. Forget about the state-based exchanges. Just focus on the fact that in a single 24-hour period, 600,000 people signed up through the federal exchange site only.

Now think back to October 2013, when HC.gov and 17 state-based exchange websites launched...and, for the most part, immediately crashed and burned.

At long last, Idaho has come through...in a big way!

Your Health Idaho Enrollment Update

BOISE, Idaho – Since Open Enrollment began on November 1, over 93,000 Idahoans have selected a health insurance plan for 2016 through Your Health Idaho. Approximately 86,000 Idahoans are currently enrolled for 2015 coverage.

“We are pleased to see an increase in enrollments at this half-way mark,” said Your Health Idaho executive director, Pat Kelly. “This demonstrates there is a continued need for access to affordable healthcare in Idaho. The good news is that Idahoans who remain uninsured still have until January 31 to enroll for health and dental coverage. But we encourage people to act now.” Idahoans who complete an application between now and January 31 will have coverage as early as February.

Idahoans who need assistance picking a health insurance plan can find a local agent or broker in their community to help them free of charge by visiting www.YourHealthIdaho.org and clicking on “find help near you.” 

Some Guy, 12/16:

Nationally, my rough guess for this week is something close to the following:

  • Sunday, 12/13: 360K nationally (270K HC.gov)
  • Monday, 12/14: 460K nationally (350K HC.gov)
  • Tuesday, 12/15: 780K nationally (600K HC.gov)
  • Wednesday, 12/16: 1.80M* nationally* (1.40M HC.gov) (*400K active + 1.40M auto-renewals?)
  • Thursday, 12/17: 2.10M* nationally (1.60M HC.gov) (*400K active + 1.70M auto-renewals?)
  • Friday, 12/18: 80K nationally (60K HC.gov)
  • Saturday, 12/19: 70K nationally (50K HC.gov)
  • Weekly Total: 5.65M nationally (4.33M HC.gov)
  • Cumulative Total: 11.30M nationally (8.50M HC.gov)

Remember that HC.gov generally represents about 3/4 of national enrollments, so for Wednesday and Thursday, I assumed around 300K active selections per day for the federal exchange.

OK, this is a bit of a downer on an otherwise extremely positive day, but given my recent obsession with trying to track down the number of people still currently enrolled in effectuated policies for 2015, it seems worth making note of.

Remember, the official exchange effectuation figure as of 6/30/15 was 9.95 million people.

Back in early November, I cobbled together the effectuated enrollment data from 8 different state-based exchanges, and concluded that the numbers stayed relatively from the end of June through the end of September. With Massachusetts included, the numbers were actually higher, and even without MA included (special case) it was only down a nominal amount. With only 8 states representing a small percentage of the national population, however, there was no way of knowing how representative this was.

Just to clarify, I fully realize that Disney/LucasFilm would've had to agree to such an official ad campaign.
I'm assuming that it's OK for me to do this under parody/fair use.
Images will be removed if requested. Please don't sue.

A very welcome, if unofficial, update from Connect for Health Colorado:

DENVER (AP) – A new insurance-matching tool similar to Uber car sharing is helping Colorado’s health insurance exchange meet demand during the open enrollment period for people who need to sign up for health coverage , an exchange official said Thursday.

And an extended deadline didn’t hurt.

Open enrollment ends in January for Connect For Health Colorado. But Thursday was the deadline for shoppers to have coverage in effect by Jan. 1.

More than 117,000 people had signed up, though exact figures weren’t available, said Connect For Health spokesman Luke Clarke.

Connect for Health wants to see 217,000 people signed up by next summer. Clarke said the exchange is ahead of last year’s pace, when 113,000 had signed up by the December deadline.

The article doesn't specify what the "thru date" for the 117K figure is, but I'm assuming that it was as of 12/15 since that was the original deadline for January coverage and the story ran today.

Well, this is mostly good news, anyway. A week or so I reported that Michigan's version of the ACA's Medicaid expansion provision (called simply "Healthy Michigan") was at risk of having the plug pulled because a) it has to be re-approved by CMS and b) the revised version of the waiver includes some pretty draconian extra requirements.

The problem was that if CMS didn't approve the waiver, the entire program would be shut down, kicking some 600,000 Michiganders off their healthcare coverage next April.

Well, as Amy Lynn Smith reports via Eclectablog, CMS did end up approving the waiver after all, ensuring that the Healthy Michigan program continues for another few years:

CMS has approved the second waiver and the Healthy Michigan Plan will continue without any disruption.

Michigan Governor Rick Snyder had this to say in a statement:

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