IMPORTANT UPDATE:

I've received confirmation from CMS that this "in line by midnight" grace period ONLY applies to those who CALL THE FEDERAL EXCHANGE at 1-800-318-2596​ and LEAVE THEIR CONTACT INFORMATION.

In other words, it does NOT appear to apply to those who are using the website application/enrollment process only; you have to CALL HC.gov and leave your number to qualify.

Every Open Enrollment Period to date, most of the ACA exchanges have ended up offering some sort of deadline extension and/or "in line by midnight" overtime grace period to allow people who started the enrollment process by the deadline additional time to wrap up their paperwork and complete the process.

Each year, this overtime period has shrunk:

First Minnesota's ACA exchange, MNsure, announced an 8-Day "don't call it an extension!" Special Enrollment Period mainly targeted at providing a 25% premium discount for those who don't qualify for the normal federal APTC/CSR financial assistance.

Now, Covered California has announced their own 4-day "Overtime" period, although this is more of the standard "waiting in line" variety:

Covered California Gives Consumers More Time to ‘Cross the Finish Line’ as It Prepares for Surge of Enrollment

• Consumers must begin the application process by the end of Jan. 31 and complete their enrollment by the end of Feb. 4.
• Thousands of Certified Insurance Agents and Community Enrollment Partners are ready to provide free and confidential in-person assistance.

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Covered California announced it is giving consumers who attempt to enroll by the Jan. 31 deadline four more days to complete their enrollment.

I'm typing this at 9:40am on Tuesday, January 31st, 2017.

The 2017 Open Enrollment Period ends at Midnight tonight (I'm assuming that's Eastern time).

That means you still have just over 14 hours to enroll for a Qualified Health Plan for the rest of 2017. If you enroll today (and pay your first month's premium), your policy will go into effect starting March 1st, and as long as you keep paying your premiums, should remain in effect until December 31st.

Many people are understandably concerned or outright scared about what will happen to their coverage given the insanity swirling around the Trump Administration, the Republicans in the House and Senate actively taking steps to repeal the ACA and so forth.

Now, I've already said many times that 2018 coverage options are likely to be a complete disaster thanks to the massive uncertainty and sabotage being deliberately created by both Donald Trump and the GOP. For the current year, 2017, it's a different story.

So, here's what you need to know:

From a last-minute press release:

The Washington Health Benefit Exchange is alerting customers that tomorrow, Jan. 31 is the deadline to sign up for 2017 health and dental coverage through Washington Healthplanfinder.

Individuals and families have until 11:59 p.m. tomorrow to select a plan that is good for the remainder of the year. Residents who fail to secure coverage by the deadline could be required to wait until the following year to sign up for health and dental coverage.

Last week, Congressional Republicans held a closed-door meeting to try and figure out how the hell they're going to replace the ACA (also known as "Obamacare" donchaknow?).

Amusingly, someone secretly recorded the meeting and anonymously sent it to the Washington Post.

The recordings confvirmed what anyone who's been paying even the slightest bit of attention over the past seven years suspected all along:

They got bupkis:

This may seem a little silly, but given the upcoming Open Enrollment deadline, the did-they-or-didn't-they confusion regarding the Trump administration's attempt to pull the final TV commercial/social media/phone/email notifications and the general insanity going on right now, I figured it might be helpful to provide direct links to the various ACA (Obamacare) websites for people to actually sign up for 2017 coverage.

Remember, regardless of how much the GOP-held Congress screws things up for 2018, signing up for a Qualified Health Policy (QHP) via one of these exchange websites by Tuesday, January 31st at Midnight should lock in both your policy and premium rate through the end of 2017.*

With that in mind:

Last week I posted an exclusive story over at healthinsurance.org regarding attempts by the Minnesota Republican-held legislature to sneak in a nasty amendment which, had it passed and been signed into law, would have given insurance carriers the right to offer policies which cover, basically nothing whatsoever.

The story ended on a happy note a few days later, as the massive negative backlash caused the state GOP to yank the amendment from the bill in question just before it went to the final vote. Awesome!!

However, I never really explained exactly what bill the pulled amendment was attached to in the first place. I should have written up a full entry on this, but have been swamped all week due to the political insanity and rapidly-changing situation on everything, so here's the basics:

New Mexico is one of five states (also including Nevada, Oregon, Hawaii and Kentucky) which technically operate their own state-based ACA exchange, but utilize HealthCare.Gov as their website enrollment platform. As such, their enrollment numbers are usually only released along with the other three dozen states on the federal exchange.

However, once in awhile they post the enrollment numbers themselves; today is such a day:

@charles_gaba NMHIX: 52,006 total signups - almost as much as last year. Still anticipating a surge as NMHIX continues ads and outreach.

— Colin (@colinb1123) January 27, 2017

The breakout here is 36,579 renewals + 15,427 new enrollees, or a 70/30 split.

Last year, New Mexico's total came in at 54,865 QHP selections, so they've hit 95% of that so far.

My original target for New Mexico for this year was 60,000, though I've knocked this down to 57,000 more recently. They're at around 91% of that so far, with less than a week to go. They'll have to add another 5,000 people in the final surge, which seems unlikely, but who knows?

For weeks now I've been pointing out that just when the most recent round of unusually high (unsubsidized) rate hikes seemed to have reassured insurance carriers on the ACA exchanges that they were over the hump...just when things seemed to be settling down for next year's enrollment period...Donald Trump won the the election, triggering the Republican-held Congress to start tearing things apart left and right, throwing everything into chaos again.

On Tuesday I noted that all of this confusion and uncertainty caused by Trump/the GOP Congress has started giving heartburn to insurance executives. Again: In October, just before the election, Molina Healthcare was happy as a clam with their exchange business and projected "another solid year" ahead. And now???

UPDATE 3:00pm 1/27/17: 

HHS official tells @CitizenCohn that Ocare automatic phone calls and outreach tools will remain. but not tv ads https://t.co/jjYfReoylD

— Sam Stein (@samsteinhp) January 27, 2017

Huh. OK...that's directly opposed to what Demko's Politico story said last night (all media outreach including email reminders), but whatever.

UPDATE 11/28/17: OK, here's the latest:

The Trump administration apparently was unable to scrap all outreach efforts to enroll individuals in Obamacare, following widespread concern that its move Thursday to pull ads promoting enrollment could destabilize the insurance marketplace.