The Department of Health and Human Services announced today that enrollment in the health insurance marketplace was up by 53 percent for the month of January. 1.1 million people enrolled this month, bringing the total number of enrollments since October 2013 to 3.3 million.
The 53 percent increase may sound promising, but I wouldn’t get too excited.
The White House initially projected enrollment would reach 3.3 million nationally by December 31, according to a memo obtained by the Associated Press. By the end of March, the total enrollment was projected to reach 7 million.
Based on today’s numbers, the administration needs to do everything they’ve done over the last four months again—but in two months. That seems like a lofty task, particularly when the website won’t be working the entire time, and is expected to be down on National Youth Enrollment day.
Even now, the most important enrollment group—healthy 18-to-34 year olds—still does not appear to be signing up. The CBO projected that 40 percent of this demographic needed to enroll in order to offset the high-risk pool and keep premiums down.
If you look through the full HHS report and scroll down to page 17, you’ll see a state-by-state breakdown of enrollments by age. In every single state, in the exchanges run by the federal government and those run by the states, the percentage of 18-to-34 year olds who have selected plans is below the 40 percent target. The District of Columbia (44 percent) is the only place where that demographic has met projections, but seeing how D.C.’s is one out of 51 and it isn’t even a state, their numbers shouldn’t inspire much hope.
And let’s not forget how the White House defines enrollments: It’s not who has paid but who has simply selected a plan.