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There were some surprises in the enrollment numbers released Friday — because even though the overall trend was down, there were a few cases where the signups inched up a bit. In House Speaker Paul Ryan's home state of Wisconsin, enrollment actually increased by 3,829 over last year, even though Ryan is leading the charge for repeal.
That was nothing compared to Senate Finance Committee chairman Orrin Hatch's home state of Utah, where signups increased by 21,550 over last year — or Florida, where enrollment surged by 17,206 despite Gov. Rick Scott's vocal opposition to the law. Even in those states, though, signups might have slowed a bit at the end: The Salt Lake Tribune had Utah's enrollment even farther ahead of last year's as of mid-January.
Jennifer Sullivan of Enroll America, a group that promotes Obamacare coverage, tells me that a lot of factors could explain why those states did better than others — anything from how many customers got subsidies to the strength of the outreach "ground game." Both were possible factors in Florida.