December 13, 2017

Chart of the Day: Obamacare Enrollments Likely to End Lower Than Last Year

Here’s my latest estimate of Obamacare signups through the end of last week:

Signups on the federal exchange are 19 percent ahead of last year, so I’m projecting that total signups are also 19 percent ahead.

Friday is the last day to enroll on the federal exchange, so this week should be a strong one. I expect that we’ll end up around 6 million signups plus another 1-2 million auto-renewals on HC.gov. At a guess, that means total signups will be in the range of 10-11 million once all the state exchanges have reported in. That would be down from 12 million last year.

Some of this might be due to an increase in folks who are above the income cutoff for subsidies and can actually get a better deal off-exchange than they can via Obamacare (due to the intricacies of the CSR elimination). But most of it is probably just a reminder that sabotage works. Confusion, lack of outreach, and an arbitrarily short enrollment period have done their intended job.

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WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

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