On October 15, the Obama administration significantly downgraded its estimate of how many people will enroll in exchange plans next year. The administration now expects only 10 million exchange enrollees at the end of 2016. Charles Gaba, a statistical expert who closely tracks Affordable Care Act (ACA) enrollment and who made fairly accurate projections for 2014 and 2015, is somewhat more optimistic. He projects enrollment at 12.2 million people by the end of next year.
These low estimates should rock the health policy community. The Congressional Budget Office only four months ago projected there would be 20 million exchange enrollees next year. This CBO estimate was 3 million people fewer than its estimate issued just after the 2012 Supreme Court case that preserved the law and 1 million fewer than its March 2010 estimate, produced days before the law was passed by the House of Representatives.
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