Updated prediction from brainwrap: 6.58 million by 3/31, at about 100,000 daily.
Update to update: 6.7 million. More on this below.
What will it be by 4/15? Can we get another 420,000300,000 in two weeks, and make the original CBO estimate of 7 million? How could we not? Actually, we know for sure of 558,000 off-exchange QHPs from the few insurance companies that have announced numbers, and we are confident that the real total is in the millions.
And where will Republicans attack next now that this "train wreck" has failed to go off the track, now that "Obama's Waterloo" has turned out yet again to be their Waterloo?
The big rush to beat the deadline among those needing insurance is on, meaning at least to start applications on the Exchanges by Monday. To be followed by another big rush to complete those applications within two weeks, and then an agonizing delay until we can get the final set of Open Enrollment Exchange numbers.
But those will not be the last ACA signups. They will be followed by continuing enrollments in cases of Qualifying Events that require changes in coverage: marriage, divorce, birth, death, loss of jobs with coverage, moving to another state…and continuing enrollments in Medicaid+CHIP, and more states accepting Medicaid expansion one by one, and the continuing Republican political campaign of lies, disinformation, attempted bullying, and outright delusion.
We will find out this season who among our elected officials with a D beside their names is ready to run on a winning issue and make the effort to GOTV, and who prefers to run from it. The trick in difficult districts and states is not to run on the name Obamacare, but on the very popular provisions contained in it, and to challenge Republicans to say what they would replace those with. Because they can't. They get comprehensively laughed at when they try.
Our brainwrap has made a number of changes to the ACA Signups Web site, and to his own policies and practices, and turned this Diary series over to me. I unpack the changes briefly below, before today's news links from the site.
New House Rules
by Charles Gaba on Wed, 03/26/2014 - 5:52pm
[Comments in square brackets are by Mokurai.]
OK, things just went into overdrive. The media spotlight has been growing, and now Paul Krugman just said some very nice things about me in the NY Times. [Link below. Our brainwrap does data better than Silver!] Believe me, I'm incredibly flattered, honored, etc etc...but I'm also getting overwhelmed, and have to make a few changes, at least until the dust settles on the enrollment insanity:
[Enrollments will diminish but not stop after the 4/15 final deadline for Open Enrollment. If brainwrap thinks that the insanity will taper off after we get the final report on the final rush, he's dreaming, and needs to read about how True Believers double down When Prophecy Fails (book by Leon Festinger et al. that gave us the phrase Cognitive Dissonance).]
- First, I've already had to stop the nightly email roundup I was sending to existing supporters. I've also had to curtail my cross-posts at both Eclectablog and Daily Kos for the time being. [OK. We have you covered here. Maybe you should do a final Eclectablog post on the Michigan Medicaid expansion, and let them know what's happening with you, like being able to give time to working on the site again. ^_^]
- I had to put a minimum donation level for creating an account that removes the banner ads. I'm not doing this because I'm turning greedy, but because I don't want some joker to make 100 donations of $0.10 apiece under different email addresses, forcing me to create 100 separate accounts. I hope this doesn't sound jerkish. I still appreciate the smaller donations, I just can no longer create an ad-removal account for them. This doesn't apply to anyone who has already made a donation, of course. [Jerkish, to protect yourself from jerks? I don't think so.]
- If you do make a donation of $10 or more, it might take a few hours for me to send your login info. Please understand that it's not an automated process; I create each account...I never expected to get anywhere near this level of attention, and simply don't have time to set up an automated system right now. By the time I have the time to do so, no one will care anymore anyway :) [Ha! This should be permanent. And somebody should pay brainwrap to do it. I used to get quite decent money in market analysis, but I don't have the right contacts for this. I only did high tech.]
- I also hate to say this, but I can no longer give "hat tip" credit for most entries, because in some cases 4-5 people are sending me the same information/link. [I don't know about others, but I wasn't doing it for any hat tips.]
- I recently started adding nifty little "State" icon graphics to the updates; I'm going to discontinue those (again, I haven't had time to automate the process for plugging in those thumbnail images) [I once had an app with a check box in the preferences for "Waste cycles drawing trendy 3D effects". I approved of that programmer's sentiment. It's the numbers I follow brainwrap for, not the pretty pictures.]
- Also, until things slow down, I probably won't be responding in the Disqus comments section unless I need clarification from data provided or whatever. If you say something complimentary, please believe that I really and truly do appreciate it and thank you for saying so. [Is that something we can follow? Is anybody else here on Disqus?]
- Finally, I know this also may sound kind of jerky, but Professor Krugman's NY Times article is also likely to be the last link that I add to the "Media" page. I don't think I can ask for any higher praise than the column he wrote today. [The rest of us should step up and find a place for those links. They are wonderful assets for commenting on disinformation elsewhere. The interviews are particularly helpful.]
- I know that A LOT is happening VERY quickly right now, but I do have a family and a day job, so it might take awhile for me to catch up with it. [Thank them from all of us.]
That's all for the moment.
News of the day
'A trip down memory lane (meta)
No, not that kind of meta. A review of visitors to ACA Signups, which spiked when Paul Krugman said that our brainwrap does data better than Nate Silver, and a great big Thank you from brainwrap to everybody who has helped.
California: 80K QHPs in past 4 days; suggests 100K+/day nationally
Based on this and the Oregon entry, I'm increasing my projection from 6.54M to 6.58M as of 3/31.
Oregon: 2,235 QHPs in 3 days, over 4x the rate of February
New York: Total breaks 782K; est. 367K QHP, 415K Medicaid, 70% previously uninsured
Kentucky: QHPs break 70K, Medicaid 280K
Minnesota: QHPs hit 42K, Medicaid up to 110K
Arkansas: Medicaid expansion up to either 121K or 150K, depending...
Medicaid Expansion comes to Michigan & New Hampshire (update: & Utah?)
Utah governor hopes for Medicaid-expansion deal with federal government by summer
Hey, that's my hometown paper, The Republic, in Columbus, Indiana! Who contributed that? Well, it's an AP story, presumably published all over. No telling which version will rise to the top in a Google search. Gov. Herbert wants to require Medicaid recipients to work even if they are applying for disability, which the Feds won't go for.
Terry McAuliffe is pushing hard in Virginia for a two-year trial of full Medicaid expansion.
Here is a current map of Medicaid expansion: rejection (light gray), acceptance (black), and continuing debate (medium gray), updated from the map at State rejections of Medicaid expansion on Wikipedia.
See also Kaiser Family Foundation's table, Status of State Action on the Medicaid Expansion Decision, 2014
Maryland: QHPs break 49K, Medicaid breaks 220K
Update:
California: Suggestions of even larger numbers?
by Charles Gaba on Sat, 03/29/2014 - 1:39pm
I included the 80K in 4 days info yesterday, but didn't realize the implications of the second sentence until a commentor pointed it out:
The Covered California exchange said sign-ups have been building throughout the week with about 80,000 people picking a health plan Monday through Thursday. An additional 150,000 households created an online account and started the shopping process in the last three days, officials said.
That's 50,000 households--not individuals--PER DAY who JUST created an account for 3 days straight.
Pretty sure most of those are actually enrolling even as I type this.
I think this final weekend surge is going to be MUCH larger than even I've been projecting.
Gotta run for the moment, but I'm going ahead and calling it 6.7 million [emphasis added] exchange-based QHPs as of now.
New York: SHOP QHPs double from 5K to 10K