One of the few updates out of New Jersey, it looks like Chris Christie made one decent decision last year, anyway...

New Jersey FamilyCare has added over 100,000 people to its rolls, contributing to savings that Gov. Chris Christie has already anticipated in his proposed budget.

In just the first three months of this year, 102,268 state residents were added to the rolls of FamilyCare, which includes recipients of two federally supported programs – Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP).

Through April 6, 41,402 Arkansans have purchased plans on the Arkansas Health Insurance Marketplace, the new marketplace created by Obamacare, according to information released yesterday by the Arkansas Insurance Department (see county  by county map above). As in the rest of the country, Arkansas saw a surge in enrollment recently, with more than 7,800 people signing up in the last two weeks. But while national enrollment in the marketplaces across the country hit initial projections, Arkansas will fall well short. 

...This does not include enrollment in the private option, the state's policy for Medicaid expansion which purchases plans on the Marketplace for folks that make less than 138 percent of the federal poverty level 

Oregon continues to slog it's way through enrollments in spite of their technical problems...

April 10, 2014
Update: Private coverage and Oregon Health Plan enrollment through Cover Oregon

Medical enrollments through Cover Oregon: 217,413
Total private medical insurance enrollments through Cover Oregon 1: 63,325 

Oregon Health Plan enrollments through Cover Oregon: 154,088

Net private medical:  59,923

This just in...Kentucky's tally is now up to nearly 80K exchange QHPs and 323K Medicaid enrollees:

BREAKING: 402,407 Kentuckians are enrolled in @kynectky. 322,827 in Medicaid, 79,580 have purchased private insurance. #ACA #kyga14

— Joe Sonka (@joesonka) April 10, 2014

Still ~75% of @kynect enrollees previously did not have insurance. That's over 300,000 Kentuckians who now have health coverage due to #ACA

— Joe Sonka (@joesonka) April 10, 2014

The numbers are small, but the percentages are impressive: Delaware's 3/31 tally is in:

DOVER – Delaware ended its first enrollment period for the nation's new Obamacare health plans with 11,335 people enrolled – about 3,000 more than federal goals for the state.

Another 3,411 people gained coverage through the state's expanded Medicaid coverage, which extended eligibility to 138 percent of the federal poverty level.

According to L.A. Times reporter Chad Terhune, CoveredCA has confirmed enrolling another 70,000 people in private QHPs in the first 9 days of the extension period. They had 1,221,727 as of 3/31, so that brings their total to 1.29 million as of last night:

#CoveredCA added 70,000 (on top of 1.2M) who picked a plan in the 9 days of the "grace period" since March 31 to April 15. @charles_gaba

— Health Access CA (@healthaccess) April 10, 2014

#CoveredCA exchange: 70K more enrolled since 3-31 deadline after extending sign-ups to 4-15, adding to 1.2M already in #ACA

— Chad Terhune (@chadterhune) April 10, 2014

Yeah, I know, I keep bouncing around on this; first I thought 8M was feasible, then I backtracked. However, let's do some simple math.

  • Obviously it wasn't exactly 7.1M on the nose at midnight on 3/31. Let's assume an overage of, say, 20K at a minimum.
  • It's also safe to assume that it was slightly over 7.5M as of midnight last night; let's say 20K there as well.
  • That means that in the first 9 days, QHP enrollments averaged 500K / 9 = 55.5K per day
  • I'd say a final weekend mini-surge is also likely for those who wait until the absolute last possible moment, which should cancel out what I'm assuming is a natural dropoff throughout the week. So...figure something like 30K/day today and tomorrow, then back up to 60K/day for the last 4 days. That's 300K added to the existing 7.52K, or 7.82M.

So, as my final projection for 4/15, I'm going with: Somewhere between 7.7M - 7.9M, with an outside chance of squeaking by the 8M mark after all (wishful thinking?)

Me, last night: Hey, Guess What? I think we just hit 7.5M QHPs.

HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, moments ago: 

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius says 7.5 million Americans have now signed up for health coverage under President Barack Obama's health care law.

That's a 400,000 increase from the 7.1 million that Obama announced last week at the end of the law's open enrollment period. The figure exceeded expectations, a surprise election-year success for the law after a disastrous roll-out.

Sebelius disclosed the new figure during a hearing Thursday before the Senate Finance Committee.

Assuming that my "back of the envelope" estimates on extension-period exchange QHP enrollment are accurate, the ACA has just crossed several important milestones, including:

  • 7.5 Million exchange-based private QHP enrollments (total)
  • 7.0 Million exchange-based private QHP enrollments (paid or will pay within a month of their policies actually kicking in)
  • 20 Million documented enrollments total (ie, including all types--individual QHPs, on exchange, off-exchange, Medicaid, woodworkers, sub26ers, etc...but not including the 13.9 million undocumented, non-specific additional off-exchange QHPs and ESIs suggested by the RAND Corp. study)

Note that I've modified The Graph a bit more tonight, separating out the ESIs (Employer-Supplied Insurance) into a 4th category (this includes the tiny number of SHOP enrollments, but mostly the controverisal 8.2M ESI estimate noted by the RAND study).

Last night I posted that Washington State, which officially is not offering any sort of extension period, actually is allowing late enrollments on a special, case-by-case basis.

Then, earlier today, I learned that Hawaii (which I never really read an official policy on one way or the other, but which I thought was not extending enrollments) actually is doing so for up to potentially 1,100 people or so (192 to date).

Now it appears that Connecticut, which had been very explicit about their "no extension" policy...apparently is allowing up to 10,000 people to (potentially) sneak in under the wire after all:

Connecticut’s health insurance exchange ended its first open enrollment period with 197,878 people signed up for health care coverage, including 5,917 who enrolled Monday.

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