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More than 8.7 million people signed up for coverage next year under the Obama-era health care law, the government reported Thursday, as the program that President Donald Trump has repeatedly pronounced "a disaster" exceeded expectations. The final tally for the 39 HealthCare.gov states showed about 80,000 fewer sign-ups than an initial count provided last week, before the Christmas holiday. A spokesman for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services said the slight dip was due to late cancellations. (12/28)

The revised number released Thursday is still strong. But it takes into account late cancellations by some people, CMS said. That includes cancellations by people who were automatically re-enrolled in a plan. Every year, a couple million people are automatically re-enrolled if they choose not to actively select a new plan. (Sullivan, 12/28)

Americans in states that Donald Trump carried in his march to the White House account for more than 4 in 5 of those signed up for coverage under the health care law the president still wants to take down. An Associated Press analysis of new figures from the government found that 7.3 million of the 8.8 million consumers signed up so far for next year come from states Trump won in the 2016 presidential election. The four states with the highest number of sign-ups — Florida, Texas, North Carolina and Georgia, accounting for nearly 3.9 million customers — were all Trump states. (12/22)

ObamaCare is showing its resilience after a year where it took a beating but survived. A surprisingly high number of people signed up under the law in the enrollment period that ended last week: 8.8 million, just short of the 9.2 million from last year. (Sullivan, 12/25)

New Hampshire’s individual health insurance market saw a surge of sign-ups this year, surpassing expectations and defying some fears that new policy changes would weaken turnout. New figures from the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) show that 50,275 Granite State consumers signed up to a plan overall – just slightly fewer than last year’s 53,024 – despite a sign-up period only half as long as in years past. (DeWitt, 12/27)

In the search for ways to bring down American health-care spending, there are certain ideas that are close to dogma. Chief among them: If you provide health insurance to people, they will stop overusing the emergency room. “A lot of people just didn't bother getting health insurance at all. And when they got sick, they’d have to go to the emergency room,” President Obama said in a 2016 speech. “But the emergency room is the most expensive place to get care. And because you weren’t insured, the hospital would have to give you the care free, and they would have to then make up for those costs by charging everybody else more money.” (Johnson, 12/27)