Cross-posted at ACA Signups
Sarah Kliff at Vox just announced that the February HHS report is expected to be released today at around 4:00pm. A few items in anticipation of that:
—As I've noted several times, I'm projecting the report to total around 902,000 exchange-based private QHP enrollments for the month of February (technically 2/02 - 3/01)
—If accurate, this would bring the cumulative total of exchange-based private QHP enrollments to 4.202 million (from 10/1/13 - 3/01/14)
—From the data I have, the average daily enrollment rate in February was almost identical to that of January, which had about 1.146 million QHP enrollments. HOWEVER, the January report included five weeks of data (12/28 - 2/01), while the February report will only include four weeks (2/02 - 3/01). Therefore, even at the same daily average, it'll be about 20% lower no matter what.
—Don't be surprised if Peter Lee of CoveredCA decides to steal some thunder by announcing that California has enrolled 1,000,000 QHPs all by itself either today or tomorrow. However, that would include the past 10 days, while the HHS number will only run thru 3/01.
—If you want to get REALLY specific, call it 902,800 and 4,202,292.
—Regarding March, I do have some very preliminary numbers from the first week of March for six states, and overall there's definitely an uptick so far, but it's far too early to have any idea how much of one. The bottom line is that March (which will only count 30 days, since March 1st will be included on the February report) will have to hit around double the February enrollment rate in order to hit the revised CBO 6 Million number, and nearly triple the February rate in order to hit the original CBO 7 million number. Doubling the rate (around 64,000/day) would require a similar surge to what we saw in December. Tripling it would require outpacing December by 50%. Doable? Perhaps. Likely? Probably not, but who the hell knows?
ONE MORE THING: The report will be released in about 10 minutes, but my kid's bus gets home from school in 12, so it'll be a good 20 minutes or so before I can post the actual results. I'm sure you'll hear about it from Sarah Kliff at Vox well before I post it here, but I'll do so anyway ASAP :)
UPDATE: OK, sorry about the longer-than-expected delay...my kid got off the bus all pouty, turns out he tripped, fell and got a bloody nose at school today :(
The good news is he's fine now, just a bit of swelling, have an ice pack on his nose. Of course, if he does need any medical care, Obamacare will cover him lol...
Anyway, the report is out, here's the official numbers for February:
My Feb. Projection: 902,800
Actual: 942,833;
My Total Projection: 4.202 million
Actual: 4,242,325
I underestimated by about 4.2%, which is perfectly fine with me :)