...we could now be looking at anywhere from 21.4 - 22.7 million QHPs, for a grand total of somewhere between 22.7 - 24.0M QHPs+BHPs combined by the time the dust settles in every state on January 1st. I'll stick with 23M for the moment just in case...
A week later, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) posted their final pre-deadline Open Enrollment Snapshot Report, which confirmed that over 20.3 million people had selected Qualified Health Plans (QHPs) through December 23rd.
As promised, here's my full state-by-state breakout of the latest 2024 ACA Open Enrollment Period "Snapshot" report as we head into the final week of enrollment in most states.
Here's an overview of the year over year comparison. I had to adjust for the missing day (thru 12/23 instead of 12/24 last year). I've also had to adjust for the fact that Virginia moved from the federal exchange to its own platform this year:
Under the Biden-Harris Administration, Over 20 Million Selected Affordable Health Coverage in ACA Marketplace Since Start of Open Enrollment Period, a Record High
As January 16 coverage deadline approaches, Biden-Harris Administration continues to encourage Americans to sign up for quality, affordable health care coverage
Under the Biden-Harris Administration, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services announced today that over 20 million people have selected an Affordable Care Act (ACA) Health Insurance Marketplace plan since the 2024 Marketplace Open Enrollment Period launched on November 1 — a record number of enrollments.
CMS's press release states that they won't be posting the next detailed/state-by-state enrollment breakout until January 10th, so aside from a handful of minor SBM updates here and there, there hasn't been much to report on the enrollment front since then...until this:
Just 3 days ago, I posted a revised 2024 ACA Open Enrollment Period projection, in which I upgraded my prior projection from 18.5 million Americans signing up for either Qualified Health Plans (QHPs) or Basic Health Plans (BHPs) combined nationally to over 19 million doing so. That 18.5M projection was itself a drop from my original projection of 19M QHPs + BHPs combined from a month earlier.
I delved into the various reasons for both my original and revised projections, but the bottom line is that I figured it would end up being somewhere in the neighborhood of 19 - 19.5 million, give or take, likely broken out something like ~18 million QHPs plus another ~1.3 million BHPs in New York & Minnesota only.
I even included 20 million as an outside possibility.
Back on November 5th, just a few days into the 2024 Open Enrollment Period, I did some back-of-the-math number crunching and concluded that the odds were pretty good that total 2024 OEP ACA enrollment (including both exchange-based Qualified Health Plans, or QHPs, as well as enrollment in Basic Health Plans (BHPs) in New York & Minnesota only) would break 19 million people for the first time in the ACA's history.
As long-time readers know, every year during the ACA Open Enrollment Period (OEP) I have a tradition of regularly updating a graph tracking how many Americans have enrolled in on-exchange Qualified Health Plan (QHP) policies nationally. The Graph®, as I've come to call it, is how this entire website got started; the logo for ACA Signups even consists of a stylized version of the original version from the 2013 - 2014 OEP.
That first year I attempted to track every conceivable population--on-exchange QHPs, off-exchange QHPs, Medicaid expansion enrollment, SHOP (ACA small business exchange) enrollees) and even the amorphous "sub-26er" populations of young adults enrolled in their parents employer plans thanks to ACA provisions. Some of these were nearly impossible to accurately estimate, but I really tried my best.
Over the next year or two, I not only dropped the categories which I wasn't able to track properly, my tracking of the remaining ones became much more streamlined and sophisticated. Eventually I decided to stick with just two categories: On-exchange QHPs and those enrolled in the Basic Health Plan (BHP) programs in Minnesota and New York.
In June 2023, 92,614,205 individuals were enrolled in Medicaid and CHIP.
85,614,581 individuals were enrolled in Medicaid in June 2023, a decrease of 1,169,095 individuals (1.3%) from May 2023.
6,999,624 individuals were enrolled in CHIP in June 2023, a decrease of 32,449 individuals (0.5%) from May 2023.
As of June 2023, enrollment in Medicaid and CHIP has decreased by 1,304,004 since March 2023, the final month of the Medicaid continuous enrollment condition under the Families First Coronavirus Response Act (FFCRA) and amended by the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2023.
Governor Kathy Hochul today encouraged eligible New Yorkers to renew their health insurance coverage as insurance renewal deadlines rapidly approach. The Governor also issued a public service announcement to get the message out to New Yorkers.
Back in late January, I crunched the numbers on the total number of Americans who currently have healthcare coverage directly via the Affordable Care Act. This includes three categories: Exchange-based Qualified Health Plans (QHPs); the Basic Health Plan (BHP) progams in Minnesota and New York; and Medicaid Expansion in the 38 states (+DC) which had implemented it as of that point.
I concluded that the total numbers for each were roughly 15.4 million QHPs, 1.2 million BHPs and 23.5 million Medicaid expansion enrollees, or around 40.1 million people total.
Earlier this week, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) confirmed my estimates and even came in slightly higher, at around 40.2 million. They put effectuated QHPs at 15.6 million and Medicaid expansion enrollment at around 23.4 million.
