Obamacare’s annual open enrollment ended on Thursday, and while there was a decline in the number of Americans signing up for plans, it was a smaller drop than the Congressional Budget Office’s forecast.
According to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, 22.8M people signed up for Affordable Care Act plans from the start of the 2026 open enrollment period through Jan. 3, 2026.
That’s lower than the 23.6M enrollees for last year as of Jan. 4, 2025 (24.2M in total in 2025). But it’s above CBO’s baseline projection of 18.9M enrollees.
To note, the latest CMS numbers reflect available data through Jan. 3, 2026, and some states extended open enrollment through the end of the month.
“One reason forecasts may have missed the mark is that they overlook that most enrollees still won’t have to pay all that much for their plans,” The Wall Street Journal’s editorial board wrote in an opinion piece, citing estimates from a think tank that advocated for the expiration of enhanced ACA subsidies.
According to the WSJ op-ed, the Trump administration said the decline in signups this year was mainly due to measures it took to crack down on fraud.
But KFF, a health policy firm, said the CMS data shows how many people signed up for or were automatically renewed into 2026 coverage, which does not necessarily translate to enrollments.
“These counts may not fully show how much the expiration of the enhanced premium tax credits has affected enrollment in the ACA Marketplaces,” said Jared Ortaliza, policy analyst, KFF. “The extent of enrollment changes likely won’t be known until this summer.”