Report: 4 million enroll in health plans
Associated Press
The first 50-state report on the latest sign-up season under President Barack Obama’s health care law shows that more than 4 million people selected plans for the first time or re-enrolled in what the administration called “an encouraging start.”
More than 3.4 million people enrolled using HealthCare.gov as of Dec. 15, and more than 600,000 people selected plans in the state-run marketplaces, according to a Department of Health and Human Services report released Tuesday. The figures generally are up-to-date through Dec. 13.
About half of those enrolling are first-timers and half are returning customers, suggesting there are about 2 million Americans new to the program.
The figures look good for the administration to meet its goal of 9.1 million customers signed up and paying premiums in 2015, independent experts said. But they predicted the program won’t meet another target: the 13 million enrollments forecast by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office in 2015.
“It would take a massive surge in enrollment over the next six weeks” to reach 13 million, said Larry Levitt of the nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation.
Other experts believe that for the program to be sustainable it would have to exceed the goal set by the administration.
“I really think they need to get to 13 million this year to have a sustainable program, not this low-ball estimate that nobody takes seriously,” said Washington, D.C.-based health care consultant Robert Laszewski. “We don’t know how many of these people are going to pay. And we don’t know how many of the existing people are going to re-enroll.”
Young adults still aren’t flocking to the program, which could increase costs down the road. About 24 percent of the enrollees are 18 to 34 years old, an age group needed to offset the costs of older, sicker enrollees and keep premiums from rising.