8.8M Enroll In Federal Health Marketplace As Obamacare Refuses To Die

[progree]

6. doesn't include the state exchanges, just the healthcare.gov signups

Last edited Fri Dec 22, 2017, 02:38 AM - Edit history (3)

I believe the article is comparing healthcare.gov signups for the 2018 plan year to those for the 2016 and 2017 plan years, and neither include the state exchanges

The federal total does not include the dozen states that run their own health care marketplaces, many of which have invested heavily in outreach and are seeing record enrollment, including populous states like California. Those numbers will come in later, and the ultimate total may be several million higher than the total announced Thursday.

Also the link in the OP to the 9.2 million figure for the 2017 plan year says this:

On January 31, 2017, Open Enrollment for 2017 coverage ended with more than 9.2 million plan selections in states that use the HealthCare.gov eligibility and enrollment platform. ... This snapshot does not include plan selections from State-based Marketplaces. CMS will release a detailed final enrollment report in March, including final plan selection data from State-based Marketplaces.

https://www.cms.gov/Newsroom/MediaReleaseDatabase/Fact-sheets/2017-Fact-Sheet-items/2017-02-03.html

So in conclusion the 9.2 million enrollments for the 2017 plan year and 8.8 million enrollments for the 2018 plan year are both just the healthcare.gov signups.

But as the OP says, the 8.8 million isn't the final number for healthcare.gov signups:

CMS reported that the total does not include the people who enrolled between midnight and 3 a.m. on the final day, nor those who were stuck trying to enroll when the deadline hit, and who were called back by HHS and later enrolled.

The main OP article concludes on this gloomy note:

Yet danger still lurks on the horizon for the federal health care marketplace. Congress passed a tax bill this week that kills the Obamacare’s individual mandate penalty, a key mechanism for pushing young and healthy people to buy health insurance. The mandate’s repeal doesn’t kick in until 2019, but amid documented mass confusion about the status of the law, there is a chance many people will think they do not need health insurance in 2018, and will decline to pay their first premiums. Even in a normal year, there is an attrition rate of about 10 percent, but that drop-off may be much larger in the months to come.

Hopefully their insurance companies will point them to the status of the law if they don't pay their first premium(s). (The IRS has said it will enforce the mandate and not automatically process returns that don't have the health insurance checkbox checked or whatever it is)