UPDATE: Meanwhile, what's going on in CA, DC, KY, NY & VT?

If you look at the State-By-State OE3 enrollment breakdown, you'll notice that there are still 4 blank fields all the way down at the bottom, plus a special note regarding California:

California is a special case: They've been pretty good about updating their enrollment numbers for those who are newly enrolled (197,000 as of 12/15), but haven't uttered a peep about the number of existing enrollees who renewed their policies (either actively or passively). Seeing how this number could theoretically be as high as 1.3 million people, this is no small thing; even if it's only around 1.1 million (which is what I'm expecting), that would still immediately increase the confirmed national total by 11% in one shot.

New York, on the other hand, has yet to release any enrollment data for 2016. No renewals, no new additions, nothing, zilch. This is even more frustrating than CA...and NY is the second largest state-based exchange. I'm expecting them to announce roughly 300,000 total 2016 enrollees as of the end of December; the biggest wildcards for NY this year are a) the addition of a Basic Health Plan (similar to Minnesota's) which could cannibalize NY's QHP numbers by up to 200,000 people; and b) the Health Republic Co-Op debacle, which was even uglier than most of the other Co-Op failures due to its large enrollment number and it being shut down at the end of November instead of December as the rest were.

The only saving grace about CA and NY is that they're at least being consistent; each did the same thing last year, with California not giving out their renewal number until late January and New York not coughing up their numbers until February (which, this year, would be kind of a moot point, since the enrollment period will already be over by then).

The same cannot be said about the other three states. KY, DC & VT were all pretty good about updating their enrollment numbers last year. VT sent out reports weekly, while DC and KY did so at least every few weeks. This year, however...bupkis.

Kentucky's policy change can be pinned on exactly one person: Newly-elected Republican Governor Matt Bevin. I've already written extensively about this, so I'll leave it at that for now. I'm assuming that kynect is up to perhaps 96,000 people by now, but who the heck knows?

That leaves just Vermont and the District of Columbia. I estimate that DC should be at roughly 18,000, while Vermont should be up to 27,000 by now. Why on earth have both exchanges clammed up this year? Even if one or both are having a rough time of it this time around, it can't be that bad, and the numbers are gonna come out sooner or later anyway, so why the silent treatment?

(sigh) Anyway, assuming my estimates for all 5 states are correct, they should add roughly 1.54 million to the national total, bringing it up to around 11.3 million. Hopefully they'll break their silence soon...

UPDATE 1/07/16: In the words of Emily Litella, "Never Mind..."