3/31 Exchange QHP Grand Total: 7.1 Million (estimate)

The headlines are all buzzing with the announcement of the official grand total of exchange-based QHPs as of midnight yesterday: 7,041,000:

How many people have signed up for private coverage under Obamacare? 7,041,000, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney announced Tuesday afternoon.

But wait, what's this?

That number is likely to rise: It does not include the Monday sign-ups in the 14 states operating their own marketplaces. In addition, the enrollment deadline was relaxed for people having trouble completing the process, so some people could still sign up in the next two weeks.

Yup, just as I suspected this morning:

IF I'm interpreting Mr. Park's words correctly, he's saying that the grand total of exchange QHPs was brought over the 7 million mark even without including the state exchange enrollments for the day.

So, how many more did the 15 state exchanges (well, 14 + DC) bring in?

Again, assuming the Federal exchange made up about 78% of the total:

• 217,176 / X = 78 / 100
• 21,717,600 / X = 78
• X = 278,430

Subtract 217,000 from 278,000 and you get roughly 61,000 additional enrollments across California, Colorado, Connecticut, Hawaii, Kentucky, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington and the District of Columbia.

Grand total including these should be roughly 7.102 Million.

So, how'd I do?

• My final high-end "official" projection from yesterday was 7M on the nose, which means I was off by around 1.5%.

• My official "range" was between 6.9 - 7.0M, if you want to be really hard on me, call it 6.95M (making me off by 2.1%).

• Conversely, if you want to go easy on me and use my "unofficial" final projection of 7,080,180 from the final projection chart, that would make me off by around 0.3%.

...give or take :)

Of course, I don't know if that 78% HC.gov share is correct or not. The state-run exchanges could be higher than 61K, or it could be lower (though I doubt it). And I'd be perfectly fine if it turns out to be higher, believe me!