New Mexico & Texas: Partial QHP data from 2 insurers

This is an excellent overview of how healthcare pundits, politicos, reporters and industry folks are keeping a very close eye on the ACA exchanges this weekend, as the December 15th deadline for January coverage approaches (well, for most states, that is; 6 states now have deadlines later than the 15th). It's well worth a read, as it goes into the whole "manual renewal" vs. "autorenewal" issue and a whole mess of other stuff.

However, towards the end are two additional data points:

CMS officials, including Marketplace CEO Kevin Counihan have been reassuring about auto-enrollment, said Martin Hickey, CEO of New Mexico’s co-op health plan. “It’s a stressor, but I haven’t seen him biting his fingernails,” Hickey said of Counihan. “But you never know.” His own health plan has had 3,ooo people sign up as of Dec. 10 through HealthCare.gov and the pace is picking up.

“We are guardedly optimistic but still nervous, because it’s brand new,” said Ken Janda, CEO of Community Health Choice, a small insurer selling plans on Texas’ exchange. “Given how much better things have worked this year than last year, it gives us some reason to believe that this will actually work.”

Janda’s Houston-area company has seen roughly 7,500 new sign-ups, a huge increase over the first year, when they only got about 250 people. He expects most people who got a plan last year to “just stay where they are” for 2015.

OK, so that's 3,000 in New Mexico and 7,500 new enrollees in Texas...except that a) these aren't state-wide figures by any means (they only cover 1 small company in each state) and b) they have to be subtracted from the HC.gov total on the spreadsheet, so the total number won't actually change any.

Still handy to help fill in the gaps...