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A half-million sign-ups during HealthCare.gov’s first week A half-million people sign up for insurance during HealthCare.gov’s first week
(about 2 hours later)
Nearly a half-million people chose health plans through HealthCare.gov during the first week of the new open-enrollment period in the online insurance marketplace, federal health officials announced Wednesday.Nearly a half-million people chose health plans through HealthCare.gov during the first week of the new open-enrollment period in the online insurance marketplace, federal health officials announced Wednesday.
The figures show that nearly half of those who signed up for insurance do not currently have coverage through the federal insurance marketplace. That group — 48 percent of 462,000 who picked a health plan during the week starting Nov. 15 — is significant, because a major mission of the enrollment window this time is to attract uninsured Americans who did not get coverage through HealthCare.gov’s maiden year. The figures show that nearly half of those who have just signed up for insurance do not currently have coverage through the federal insurance marketplace. That group — 48 percent of 462,000 who picked a health plan during the week that started Nov. 15 — is significant, because a major mission of the enrollment window this time is to attract uninsured Americans who did not get coverage through HealthCare.gov in its maiden year.
The report also shows that the interest in — or ability to get — insurance is running ahead of the first enrollment period for HealthCare.gov, which began in October 2014 and was marred by computer defects that blocked many people trying to sign up. On the other hand, the figures indicate that few of the 6.7 million people who already have insurance through the marketplace moved immediately to renew it.
For the entire first month of last year’s sign-up, slightly over a half-million people completed insurance applications through the federal marketplace, and nearly 30,000 then went on to choose a health plan. The new figures show that this time, in the first week just over 1 million people completed applications and almost half of them picked a health plan. The report also shows that the interest in — or ability to get — insurance is running ahead of the first enrollment period for HealthCare.gov, which began in October 2014 and was marred in its initial few months by computer defects that blocked many people trying to sign up.
“We are off to a solid start,” said Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Mathews Burwell. “Every day we are making progress.” In the first month of last year’s sign-up period, slightly over a half-million people completed insurance applications through the federal marketplace, and nearly 30,000 then went on to choose a health plan. The new figures show that this time, in the first week, just over 1 million people completed applications and almost half of them picked a health plan.
The figures released Wednesday are from about three-dozen states that are relying on HealthCare.gov, the federal insurance marketplace created as a major part of the 2010 Affordable Care Act. It excludes other states that are operating separate insurance marketplaces under the law. “We are off to a solid start,” said Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Mathews Burwell.
Still, she and other senior federal health officials maintained the cautious tone they have used for months in setting public expectations for the second opportunity to sign up for coverage through the marketplaces.
“We are only 10 days in,” said Andy Slavitt, principal deputy administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the branch of HHS that oversees HealthCare.gov. “We still have a lot of work to do every day.”
In providing a snapshot of the first week’s activity on HealthCare.gov, HHS officials departed from their practice last year, when they said they were unable to release enrollment information more frequently than on a monthly basis.
The figures released Wednesday are from about three-dozen states relying on HealthCare.gov, the federal insurance marketplace created as a major part of the 2010 Affordable Care Act. The new data do not include 14 states, including Maryland and the District, that are running separate insurance marketplaces under the law. Nor do they contain any breakdowns among the states in the federal exchange — or, among people renewing coverage, how many are keeping their current health plans and how many are switching to a different one.
People who choose a health plan must begin to pay for it before they actually become insured.
In a conference call with reporters, Burwell said that the new figures reflect only enrollment in health plans that provide medical coverage. Last week, HHS was embarrassed by revelations that it had inflated enrollment tallies for coverage in 2014 by adding in a few million people who had coverage solely for dental care — an accident, HHS officials have said.
“These numbers have been checked and do not include dental,” the secretary said on Wednesday, adding that staff members are continuing to examine how the erroneous figures were provided to the public.
The snapshot also indicates that federal call centers, with staff trained to answer questions for people considering insurance through the marketplaces, have so far been able to keep up with consumers; the average wait to speak with a staff member was just over three minutes. At a time when federal officials are eager for more Latinos to become insured, the volume of calls from people requesting a Spanish-speaking representative has been relatively light; so has the number of people browsing health plans on a Spanish-language section of the federal insurance Web site.
Slavitt said that, since HealthCare.gov opened this month, there have not been any times when it was unavailable because of computer problems — a common occurrence last fall. So far, he said, the Web site’s busiest period consisted of about 55,000 people using it simultaneously — far below the 250,000 capacity it is now supposed to be able to accommodate. Still, there have been two occasions so far, he said, when insurance-seekers on certain parts of the site were steered into an online waiting room for brief periods.
He predicted that the Web site will be able to handle big upswings in traffic that, based on last year’s experiences, are likely to occur as two deadlines approach: Dec. 15 for people to renew coverage so that it will continue for next year, and Feb. 15 for the end of the three-month enrollment window — half as long as last year’s.
Earlier this year, the Obama administration decided that, after Dec. 15, it would renew automatically the coverage of anyone who bought insurance on HealthCare.gov for this year and had not taken steps by then to continue or change their health plan for 2015. Still, health officials recently have been urging everyone who already has coverage to return to the Web site to update information about their income and any changes that would affect their insurance or its price — and compare their current coverage with other health plans available to them.
During the first week, fewer than 250,000 did so.
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