Obamacare New Signups Off To Solid Start, HHS Says
By Christine Kern, contributing writer
Almost 500,000 consumers signed on in first week of 2015 enrollment period.
HHS, according to a blog post, released figures for the first week of Open Enrollment saying that, while more work needs to be done, the initial numbers are solid.
“Today, we are releasing the first weekly snapshot of Federal Marketplace Open Enrollment activity; we had a solid start, but we have a lot of work to do every day between now and February 15,” HHS Secretary Sylvia Burwell said in the post. “People are ready to get covered, and visitors to HealthCare.gov are seeing more competition, affordable options, and an improved consumer experience.”
According to HHS, millions of consumers interacted with in-person assisters, call center representatives, or visited either HealthCare.gov or CuidadodeSalud.gov to investigate their plan and financial incentives options or to actually select a plan. The numbers do not include those who interacted with State-based marketplaces.
The snapshot shows there were 462,125 plan selections, with 48 percent being new consumers and 52 percent plan renewals. The figures cover the 35 states that participate in the HealthCare.gov platform in both 2014 and 2015, as well as Oregon and Nevada, which are new to the program for 2015.
More than 1 million people have submitted applications for financial assistance and coverage and almost 1.6 million have reviewed prices for insurance using HealthCare.gov's window-shopping feature, according to the report.
President Barack Obama's administration aims to sign up more than nine million people during the current enrollment period, which ends Feb. 15. This includes renewing most of the approximately seven million people already enrolled.
There has been much speculation as to how well the HealthCare.gov website would work this year in light of last year’s disastrous rollout, as reported by Health IT Outcomes. As the first day of open enrollment started, reviews regarding this year’s roll-out were mixed.
Health IT Outcomes summarized those reviews, stating despite several bumps in the road, the second round of sign-ups seemed to proceed much more smoothly than last year’s initial rollout.
Recently, HHS was forced to acknowledge it over counted by hundreds of thousands the Obamacare health insurance enrollments for this year – an error resulting from including people who purchased dental plans and revealed by Bloomberg News – which was uncovered by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.
The reported numbers from the first week puts federal Obamacare officials on pace to sign up close to 1.8 million people during the first month of enrollment, according to The Huffington Post, but it is still a far cry from the 9.1 million target for 2015 enrollees established by Burwell. The Huffington Post reported Burwell has asserted that the administration is standing by that aspiration, quoting her as saying, “We are staying with that number. We have a lot of work before us, and we're going to continue focusing on that.”
As of last month, nearly 7 million people had health insurance policies purchased through an exchange, and their plans will be automatically renewed by the federal marketplaces and most state-run exchanges if they don't choose a different one. However, those who do not shop around could end up paying higher premiums by accepting the auto-renewal.
“We are strongly urging and encouraging everyone to come back, make sure your information is the most up-to-date,” The Huffington Post reported Burwell as saying. “For many, many people it is very important to come back and shop.”