Revised summary of signups:
Estimated Exchange QHPs as of April 9, 2014: 7.55M
Estimated Total, all sources: (13.8 M - 33.9 M)
Individual QHP Range: (7.02M - 15.35M) • Medicaid/CHIP (5.11M - 7.14M)
ESI Range (106K - 8.27M) • Sub26ers (1.60M - 3.10M)
(OFF-Exch. Individual QHPs: 2.07M confirmed; Rand study finds up to 7.8M total)
(OFF-Exch. Employer-Supplied Ins.: 34K confirmed; Rand study finds up to 8.2M total)
It just keeps getting a little better, day by day. (Except where Rand adds those gigantic chunks, where it gets lots better.) And so does the polling and the punditry.
Update: HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius has resigned. President Obama will nominate the head of the Office of Management and Budget, Sylvia Burwell, to replace her. That will be the main story tomorrow, apart from the numbers. Burwell has been a top executive with the Walmart Foundation and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
ACA Signups News
Update #1
Connecticut: 3,500 more total enrollees since 3/31
Idaho: 45K Exchange QHPs from 1 of 4 companies
Update #0
New Jersey: ACA-enabled Medicaid breaks 102K
Arkansas: 41.4K QHPs as of 4/06
Oregon: Paid QHPs up to nearly 60K, Medicaid up to 154K
Kentucky: QHPs up to nearly 80K, Medicaid nearly 323K, 75% NEWLY insured
Delaware: 11.3K QHPs & 3,400 Medicaid as of 3/31
California: 70K additional QHPs in first 9 days of extension period
Final Exchange QHP Projection: 7.7M - 7.9M (possible 8M after all???)
Do you remember the last week of the surge, when brainwrap had to keep revising his projection upward? I expect that to happen again.
That was pretty cool…
Me, last night: Hey, Guess What? I think we just hit 7.5M QHPs.
HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, moments ago:
Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius says 7.5 million Americans have now signed up for health coverage under President Barack Obama's health care law.
Hey, Guess What? I think we just hit 7.5M QHPs.
- 7.5 Million exchange-based private QHP enrollments (total)
- 7.0 Million exchange-based private QHP enrollments (paid or will pay within a month of their policies actually kicking in)
- 20 Million documented enrollments total (ie, including all types—individual QHPs, on exchange, off-exchange, Medicaid, woodworkers, sub26ers, etc…but not including the 13.9 million undocumented, non-specific additional off-exchange QHPs and ESIs suggested by the RAND Corp. study)
Connecticut: Up to 18K more QHPs even without official extension?
Michigan: Medicaid expansion grows to 85.7K in first week
Colorado: Another 2,300 QHPs added since 3/31
By the way, about those "OMG!! 5M CANCELLED POLICIES!!!"... (UPDATED)
After quoting multiple sources debunking the inflated Republican claims of millions of cancelled policies leaving people stranded without health insurance, brainwrap concludes
It's starting to sound to me like the actual number of "OMG!! 5M CANCELLED!!" may be more like 1-2 million at most...and again, just about all of those appear to have done exactly what I did: Switched over to an ACA-compliant plan, with all the protections included (no recission, no maximum cap on coverage costs, strict maximum cap on out-of-pocket costs, etc), either on or off the exchanges.
And, like the Sherlock Holmes observation about the
dog in the nighttime that did not bark, there is the fact that Republicans scouring the nation for Obamacare horror stories have yet to produce a genuine example of somebody losing insurance and not being able to afford something actually better. There are, of course, some who refuse to sign up for better care at lower cost out of spite and malice and invincible ignorance, like Julie Boonstra.
So brainwrap should swap the link to this post onto his menu of Attack Points.
Hawaii: Looks like they ARE offering an extension period after all: QHPs up 192, SHOP up...4
Minnesota: QHPs up 651, Medicaid up 5,655 since 3/31
dKos Items
I continue to recommend that you check out the Obamacare Saves Lives group posting history, and I will not to try to cover all of its activity here, but a few things stand out.
Joan McCarter: Here's why Republicans will keep voting to repeal Obamacare
This Obamacare intensity gap—as Sargent calls it—along with the general 2014 map and the tendency of the Democratic base to underperform in midterms means it's a tough climb for Democrats. But as Markos points out, the key for Democrats might actually be Obamacare. The repeal position is still intense, but it's losing numbers as more and more people move into the "keep it and fix it" camp.
Joan was referring to this.
Kos: Dems lead generic congressional ballot, but Obamacare may decide
If Democrats win the House popular vote by six points, they'd have a 50/50 chance to win back the chamber. To virtually guarantee a Speaker Nancy Pelosi, we'd have to win the House popular vote by nine points. That's the power of the GOP's gerrymander.
This poll gives Democrats a seven-point lead, giving us a better than even chance to retake the chamber.
And that's just today, before the massive Republican stumbles that we have come to expect.
Republicans want to make 2014 a referendum on Obamacare. Democrats should be happy to play along. I mean, look at this!
Support for Medicaid Expansion- 59/30 in PA, 58/33 in Florida, 57/35 in Maine, 54/38 in Georgia, 53/32 in Kentucky, 52/35 in Kansas
— @ppppolls
One final point: That 70 percent of Republican 2014 voters who want the ACA repealed (highlighted in red)? That number was 80 percent in December. Where did they go? In December, only 6 percent wanted the law "kept but scaled back," that number is now 13 percent. So as conservatives double-down on their "repeal" strategy, it is becoming less salient even to their own base.
Abbreviated Pundit Round-up: More on the benefits of Obamacare
Also, Kos's ActBlue fundraiser for brainwrap is up to 4,354 contributors and $59,475, for which brainwrap is extremely grateful, and thus says he is willing to carry on with these ACA Signups numbers as long as anybody continues to take an interest in them. Which I predict will be a lot longer than he thinks. Republicans are still putting out fake numbers about Medicare and Medicaid after nearly 50 years, and about Social Security after nearly 80.