OK, I either have some very good news...or one heck of a misunderstanding here.
Earlier today I updated both New York and Colorado's QHP numbers...and while both were very fine, they were actually down somewhat from last week (large drop for NY, small one for CO). This may actually make sense, as both of these state exchanges have been running very smoothly for months now; it's possible that they've simply started to reach the end of the line in terms of residents actually signing up (or perhaps they'll both experience a final mini-surge right at the tail end this weekend).
However, the apparent news out of both North Carolina andLouisiana has me thrown for a heck of a loop (visit the links for details).
Good gravy. 391,000 people in North Carolina?? They were only at 200,546 as of 3/01. Even if you assume this number includes Medicaid enrollments, that's still only another 55,691 as of 3/01...and NC is not an expansion state. Assuming that 391K includes both...and assuming the same 78/22 split between the two...that still suggests that QHPs have gone up to around 305,000, a 105,115 increase over the end of February, and over 3.8x the February daily rate.
If it doesn't include Medicaid (which seems likely from the wording of the article), then it's a whopping 190,454 increase--a doubling of their 3/01 total, and a near 7x increase over February.
I find either of these rather difficult to believe, so for the moment I'm only entering it into this blog entry. If I can confirm the QHPs as either of these I'll change it tonight or tomorrow.
UPDATE: On the down side, I was off by 4% this time around.
On the up side, I UNDERESTIMATED:
Actual Feb. enrollments: 942,833, for a total of 4,242,325 thru 3/01/14.
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.
I've been dead-on target 6 times in a row without hyping up my projections beforehand. This time I am hyping myself up beforehand, so I'll probably be way off...but as long as I've UNDERestimated the tally, I'll be perfectly fine with that...
The report will be released in about 5 minutes, but my kid gets home from school in about 10, so it'll be a good 20 minutes before I can really post anything. Feel free to follow Sarah Kliff of Vox in the meantime!
OK, I either have some very good news...or one heck of a misunderstanding here.
