Yesterday the Washington Health Benefit Exchange sent out a press release headlined, “Washington Healthplanfinder Sees Jump in Enrollment.” I thought they must be announcing initial enrollment numbers for the first few weeks of the current open enrollment period (which runs from Nov. 1, 2016 through Jan. 31, 2017). But no—this is just their regular Fall enrollment report (they also have a Spring report—they are all available here).

The jump in enrollment they’re talking about is from September 2015 to September 2016. The press release notes that “166,000 customers enrolled in Qualified Health Plans (QHP)—a nine percent increase over the previous year.” OK, but according to the Spring 2016 report press release, “more than 169,000 residents enrolled in Qualified Health Plans through Washington Healthplanfinder during the most recent open enrollment period—a more than 10 percent increase over the previous year.”

So it seems weird they would be trumpeting the 166,000 now. But the release did prompt me to take a closer look at the monthly enrollment numbers. Back in June (when the Spring enrollment report was released), I had thought it looked like enrollment had leveled off, based on the numbers enrolled at the end of each enrollment period. I included in that consideration the numbers reported by the Exchange for a special open enrollment period held from Feb. 2015 to April 2015, which was supposed to allow people to get insured if they were just then realizing that they would have to pay a tax penalty if they didn’t. On April 22, 2015, the Exchange reported that 16,000 had enrolled during this period, bringing the total to 170,101. The monthly numbers do not reflect that increase. The March 2016 report shows enrollment as of May 1, 2015 at 157,046. Perhaps those people didn’t end up paying for the coverage. Additionally, the number I used for the end of the Oct. 2013–March 2014 open enrollment was significantly revised down in the monthly numbers reported later.

Each Spring/Fall report includes numbers for the most recent 12 months. Where there is overlap in the months that each report includes, the more recent report typically revises the previous report’s numbers down. (Except the Sept. 2016 report revises the numbers for Jan., Feb., and March 2016 up.) In the chart below I’ve used the most recent numbers from the Spring/Fall enrollment reports. These numbers show that QHP enrollment has increased from year to year.

Typically, enrollment has been lowest at the beginning of the calendar year. In 2016, though, enrollment didn’t drop off as much in January as it had in 2014 and 2015. This suggests, I think, that enrollments are settling in. It will be interesting to see how the current open enrollment period goes. (Approved 2017 rates for plans sold on the Exchange will increase by an average 9.9 percent.)

And what then? Will Congress act to repeal the Affordable Care Act next year? Health care policy expert Bob Laszewski says, “Obamacare will effectively be repealed. No ifs, ands, or buts about it.” Further,

The best news here is that defunding and then replacement of Obamacare could ironically set the table for the first real bipartisan legislative effort in a very long time. The one we should have had in the first place.

Megan McArdle writes of a repeal, “I’ll believe it when I see it.” She thinks that, rather than act to repeal the Affordable Care Act, Congress could just “wait for it to die a natural death.”

Either way, there would be budget implications here in Washington. Walker Orenstein writes in The News Tribune,

The repeal of the Affordable Care Act, more commonly known as Obamacare, would cause a flood of low-income people to lose health coverage if it isn’t replaced with something comparable.

That could leave the state facing a hefty tab if state legislators decide to replace the federal money that paid for the expansion of Medicaid. The fix could cost the state billions of dollars, said GOP state Rep. J.T. Wilcox of Yelm.

“It’s going be to like McCleary,” Wilcox said, referring to the state Supreme Court’s 2012 ruling that the state must fix the way it pays for education by 2018, “one of those great big bogeys out there that we’re all going to have to deal with.” . . .

State officials couldn’t say how much money is at stake if Obamacare is repealed.

The story also notes that although Washington’s exchange could survive a repeal, “without the federal subsidies that some users of the exchange get to buy health insurance, fewer people could afford to use the exchange.” According to the Sept. 2016 report, 69 percent of QHP enrollees are subsidized.