Officials Announce Health Plan Sign-Ups Outpace Goals And Include 4M New Customers
The Department of Health and Human Services says 12.7 million people signed up for a policy through the health law's marketplaces during the regular enrollment season.
The New York Times:
Health Care Signups Exceed Hopes, With 4 Million Newcomers to Federal Marketplace
About 12.7 million people signed up for health insurance under the Affordable Care Act or had their coverage automatically renewed in the third annual open enrollment season. Sylvia Mathews Burwell, the secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, said the signups exceeded her goals and her expectations. “Open enrollment for 2016 is over, and we are happy to report it was a success,” she said. Most of the plan selections were for people in the 38 states — more than 9.6 million — who used the federal website, HealthCare.gov. The other 3.1 million people were enrolled in states that run their own marketplaces. (Pear, 2/4)
The Wall Street Journal:
Federal Health-Care Enrollees Exceed Goals
Top administration officials said they were especially excited to see 4 million first-time users of HealthCare.gov among the total, suggesting they had done better than expected in signing up those uninsured who may have been hard to win over. “We knocked the lights out this year,” said Kevin Counihan, the chief executive officer for the federal website and head of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services unit charged with implementing the health law. (Radnofsky, 2/4)
The Washington Post:
Affordable Care Act Enrollment Grows Modestly This Year, To 12.7 Million
Health policy experts said the numbers were in line with recent government predictions that growth in coverage through the law’s marketplaces is slowing sooner than originally expected. Of those who signed up through HealthCare.gov, 4 million people — about 2 in 5 — are new customers, the figures show. But it is not clear how many are in the niche group that HHS targeted in its recent outreach efforts: the approximately 10.5 million Americans who remained uninsured despite being eligible to buy insurance through the ACA exchanges. (Goldstein, 2/4)