Obamacare Enrollment, Including Medicaid, Heads for 14-20 Million

Revised: April 12

Charles Gaba, who has become the go-to-guru for Obamacare enrollment numbers, now predicts that by April 15, 7.09 to 9.75 million Americans will have purchased health insurance in the Exchanges. 

This is in line with the back-of-the-envelope estimate that he offered a week ago: “a nice round 8 million.”  (In parentheses, he suggested:  Perhaps a little higher (1M even?)., and then struck that thought.  “As always,” he noted, “I’ll be more than happy to be proven wrong, as long as I’ve undershot the mark.”

To that 7.09 to 9.75 million, he now adds 2.09 million who he is certain have bought comprehensive coverage outside the Exchange, plus an additional 5.7 million who, according to a Rand study published earlier this week, may have signed up  off-Exchange. Finally, Gaba estimates that 5.23 million to 7.29 million Americans have enrolled in Medicaid or CHIP. 

As of April 12, this brings the total number who will have insurance that meets the Affordable Care Acts (ACA’s) high standards to roughly 14 million to 20.2 million.

When Gaba first reported on the Rand report, he acknowledged that Rand’s numbers “were based on a survey” and “surveys include margins of error.”

Gaba has gained his reputation by being meticulous—and cautious. Typically, his estimates have been conservative. Given that track record, I suspect that by April 15, we will find that well over 14 million people have benefited from Obamacare. If pressed, I would guess 17 million.

At this point, you may be wondering: But don’t we need the new enrollees who are purchasing policies off-Exchange to join the state marketplaces in order to spread the cost of coverage among as many people as possible?

The answer is “No.”

A little-known provision in the ACA stipulates that if a carrier sells policies to individuals both in the state marketplace and in the private market, the insurer must view those customers as part of one risk pool, and price their policies accordingly. Together, they will  share the risk of becoming sick, while also sharing the cost of insurance that guarantees everyone access to care. All other things being equal, the larger the pool of people who buy coverage both on and off the Exchanges, the lower the risk– and the lower the cost for all of them.

“All other things being equal” includes whether the new people jumping into that pool are healthy. Recent evidence suggests that the new entrants are, in fact, younger, and as a result, more robust than those who signed up earlier.

In future posts, I’ll take a closer look at that pool, and explore how much you are likely to wind up paying for insurance next year.