Reuters has a useful table showing how many people have enrolled in Obamacare’s exchanges in each state. About 365,000 people have selected plans, and 5 million or so people have visited exchange websites.
In other words, there is a long way to go before we reach the 7 million–enrollee figure the CBO projected would get insurance through the exchanges by the end of March 2014. Here’s the breakdown by state:
The excellent Philip Klein has a great piece at the Washington Examiner about the gigantic gap in the enrollment numbers. He writes:
Individuals have until Dec. 23 to pick plans and until Dec. 31 to pay premiums for policies that go into effect on Jan. 1. By that time the administration had originally projected 3.3 million Americans would enroll in insurance through the exchanges, according to an internal HHS document unearthed by the Associated Press.
That means more than 2.9 million signups are required for December to catch up to the original target pace, an ambitious goal even assuming a better-functioning website, a stepped-up outreach effort and lot of Americans waiting until the last minute to decide on a plan.
The Congressional Budget Office had projected that 7 million Americans would enroll by the end of open enrollment March 31. . . .
Many health care writers have noted that the total number of enrollments is less important than whether the exchanges have a critical mass of younger and healthier participants to offset the cost of older and sicker enrollees. Though this is true, it’s also true that the lower the overall enrollment number, the less likely it is that the exchanges will have enough healthy participants to support a wide variety of plans.
I guess we will find out soon enough about that. However, it seems to me that, no matter how you look at it, the number of enrollees will need to be a lot higher for the enforcement of the individual mandate to be politically feasible.