CMS has reported* preliminary final 2021 enrollment figures in the ACA marketplace for the 36 states using the federal exchange, HealthCare.gov. In this pandemic year, enrollment in those states is up 6.6% compared to 2020 -- the first year of enrollment increase as of the end of Open Enrollment** since 2016.
Of course, enrollment increase is not uniform across those states -- every state market is different. Charles Gaba has helpfully broken out the 2020 vs. 2021 totals by state, and kindly lent me his charts. From the state totals one obvious pattern leaps out: enrollment is up 9.7% in states that have not enacted the ACA Medicaid expansion -- and down 0.5% in states that have expanded the expansion (including Nebraska, which opened the Medicaid expansion doors in October of this year). Below is Charles' chart broken out by expansion/nonexpansion.
ACA marketplace enrollment 2020 vs. 2021: Non-expansion states using HealthCare.gov
