The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has published two 2025 ACA Open Enrollment Period "snapshot reports," both of which had above-the-fold numbers which make it look as though enrollment numbers are lagging significantly behind last year's record-breaking totals:

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) is committed to creating a robust Marketplace Open Enrollment process for consumers so they can effortlessly purchase high-quality, affordable health care coverage. CMS reports that nearly 988,000 consumers who do not currently have health care coverage through the individual market Marketplace have signed up for plan year 2025 coverage.

OMG! Last year over 1.6 milllion new enrollees had signed up as of the first snapshot report...over 66% more!

via the NJ Dept. of Banking & Insurance:

NJDOBI Announces Record Enrollment to Date for 2025 Health Insurance Through Get Covered New Jersey

Residents Must Enroll by Dec. 31 for Coverage Starting Jan. 1; Open Enrollment Ends Jan. 31

TRENTON — Nearly 450,000 New Jersey residents have signed up for a 2025 health insurance plan through Get Covered New Jersey, the state’s Official Health Insurance Marketplace, in the first five weeks of the state’s Open Enrollment Period – a dramatic increase from 330,901 who had selected plans by this time last year, New Jersey Department of Banking and Insurance (DOBI) Commissioner Justin Zimmerman announced today.

Originally posted 12/09/24

SEE UPDATE AT BOTTOM

Via KFF:

The Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program was created to protect eligible young adults who were brought to the U.S. as children from deportation and to provide them with work authorization for temporary, renewable periods. As of December 31, 2022, there were roughly 580,000 active DACA recipients from close to 200 different countries of birth residing all over the U.S.

While individuals with DACA status can be authorized to work, they remain ineligible for many federal programs, including health coverage through Medicaid, the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), and the Affordable Care Act (ACA) health insurance Marketplaces. These restrictions result in higher uninsured rates among DACA recipients, contributing to barriers accessing health care.

via Connect for Health Colorado:

Denver, Colo.– Connect for Health Colorado, the state’s official health insurance marketplace, is celebrating a record-breaking open enrollment period, with 256,051 Coloradans enrolled in health coverage that begins Jan. 1.

To date, the number of Coloradans who enrolled in health insurance plans for plan year 2025 is more than the total number of people (237,107) who enrolled through Connect for Health Colorado last year.

The official total I was sent is 256,051 Qualified Health Plan (QHP) selections to date, which is 21% more than C4HCO had at the same point last year and 8% higher than last year's final Open Enrollment Period tally.

It was in early 2021 that Congressional Democrats passed & President Biden signed the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA), which among other things dramatically expanded & enhanced the original premium subsidy formula of the Affordable Care Act, finally bringing the financial aid sliding income scale up to the level it should have been in the first place over a decade earlier.

In addition to beefing up the subsidies along the entire 100 - 400% Federal Poverty Level (FPL) income scale, the ARPA also eliminated the much-maligned "Subsidy Cliff" at 400% FPL, wherein a household earning even $1 more than that had all premium subsidies cut off immediately, requiring middle-class families to pay full price for individual market health insurance policies.

Here's what the original ACA premium subsidy formula looked like compared to the current, enhanced subsidy formula:

via the Massachusetts Health Connector:

December 16, 2024—Massachusetts residents have just one week left before the deadline to get health insurance for the new year, but still have the opportunity to make sure they can go into 2025 with coverage that affordably takes care of their health and wellness needs.

Open Enrollment started Nov. 1 and runs through Jan. 23. However, most people who need health insurance—including people who have recently moved to Massachusetts, who are participants in the state’s growing gig and creative economies, or who simply haven’t had health coverage in many months or years—want coverage to start the new year. The deadline for a plan starting Jan. 1 is Monday, Dec. 23.

It was in early 2021 that Congressional Democrats passed & President Biden signed the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA), which among other things dramatically expanded & enhanced the original premium subsidy formula of the Affordable Care Act, finally bringing the financial aid sliding income scale up to the level it should have been in the first place over a decade earlier.

In addition to beefing up the subsidies along the entire 100 - 400% Federal Poverty Level (FPL) income scale, the ARPA also eliminated the much-maligned "Subsidy Cliff" at 400% FPL, wherein a household earning even $1 more than that had all premium subsidies cut off immediately, requiring middle-class families to pay full price for individual market health insurance policies.

Here's what the original ACA premium subsidy formula looked like compared to the current, enhanced subsidy formula:

I don't really write a whole lot about the Small Group Market, which consists of employer-sponsored healthcare coverage for companies with fewer than either 50 employees (in a few states the small group market serves companies with up to 100 employees).

The bulk of my small group market analysis is limited to my annual Rate Change project, where I break out & analyze annual premium rate changes for carriers in both the individual and small group markets. However, even then, while I try to run the numbers for the small group market in each state, I usually don't have much to say about it, and a lot of states don't provide actual carrier-level enrollment data publicly anyway, which means I can usually only run an unweighted average rate change at best.

As my colleague Louise Norris explains:

Small-group plans effective since January 2014 are required to fully comply with Affordable Care Act (ACA) rules that apply to individual and small-group health plans.

BeWell NM, New Mexico's ACA exchange, has an Open Enrollment Dashboard updated weekly:

As of Dec. 15th, 2024:

  • Auto-Reenrollments: 42,475
  • Active Enrollments: 16,738
  • New Enrollments: 4,893
  • TOTAL: 64,104

What's more noteworthy is that when compared against the same point last year, New Mexico's 2025 ACA enrollment total is dramatically higher.

Not only is New Mexico's exchange enrollment up a whopping 31% vs. the same point last year, it's actually already 13.5% higher than the 2024 OEP's final total of 56,472!

It was in early 2021 that Congressional Democrats passed & President Biden signed the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA), which among other things dramatically expanded & enhanced the original premium subsidy formula of the Affordable Care Act, finally bringing the financial aid sliding income scale up to the level it should have been in the first place over a decade earlier.

In addition to beefing up the subsidies along the entire 100 - 400% Federal Poverty Level (FPL) income scale, the ARPA also eliminated the much-maligned "Subsidy Cliff" at 400% FPL, wherein a household earning even $1 more than that had all premium subsidies cut off immediately, requiring middle-class families to pay full price for individual market health insurance policies.

Here's what the original ACA premium subsidy formula looked like compared to the current, enhanced subsidy formula:

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