New York: NYSoH "Ends" 2024 Open Enrollment w/at least 288K QHP enrollees, up at least 35% y/y

As I noted last week, while the 2024 ACA Open Enrollment Period ended in most states back on January 15th, and in several more as late as January 31st, there are two remaining states where it's technically still going on: California, which bumped their final Open Enrollment deadline out by an extra 9 days at the last minute on the 31st, and New York, which announced last fall that they're keeping enrollment fully open to anyone all the way out until the end of May, to coincide with the end of the ongoing Medicaid Unwinding process.

However, I guarantee that CMS isn't going to hold off on publishing their final, official 2024 OEP report until the end of May just to humor New York. My guess is that they'll use January 31st as the cut-off point, which is quite reasonable. That also seems to be Covered California's mindset as well, seeing how they just posted a press release including specific enrollment data through 1/31.

With that in mind, I decided to see about getting harder enrollment numbers for New York State. The most recent official number I have is 279,879 QHP selections as of January 13th from CMS's semi-final snapshot report. The additional enrollees from 1/14 - 1/31 are still unknown, but I have a very close guess: New York State of Health has published their February 2024 Enrollment Report for both exchange QHPs as well as Essential Plan (BHP) enrollment, which puts it at 288,647 effectuated QHPs as of February 1st, 2024.

The actual number of QHP selections 288,647 thru 1/31 was a bit higher, since anyone who enrolled between 1/16 - 1/31 won't have their policies effectuated until March 1st, and of course a small percentage of those who select plans during Open Enrollment don't actually end up paying the first premium and are never effectuated (this has averaged around 6% or so the past few years nationally). So those extra 8,768 enrollees are likely closer to perhaps 12,000 or so. Hopefully NYSoH will release an official report & we'll see what the exact number ends up being soon.

In any event, even at 288,647, this still means NY has outperformed last year by nearly 35%.