More Have Health Insurance, But Texas Lags

About 6 million people have signed up for Marketplace health coverage in states that use HealthCare.gov, according to the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services. “Many people were waiting to buy coverage”.

Yet the administration, citing “unprecedented demand”, gave customers an extra two days to sign up and still have a policy on January 1.

Just 7 percent of the uninsured were aware that January 31 is the open enrollment deadline.

States such as NY and Minnesota had already announced similar extensions on their state-run exchanges, where users can shop for private plans and qualify for government subsidies that make their monthly premium bills more affordable.

While these new statistics are discouraging for proponents of Obamacare, 2.8 million people have selected plans since the third enrollment period opened on November 1 and one million of them are now new customers.

“The more who sign up, the stronger the system becomes”, Obama said at his final press conference of the year.

A few million more enrollees, who did not actively select a plan, will be auto-enrolled in 2016 coverage before the new year.

Kevin Counihan, CEO of Healthcare.gov, credits the surge with people’s desire to have insurance, but also how affordable they are finding plans if they receive tax credits, which about 80% of people do.

While retaining consumers is important, Administration officials need to attract uninsured consumers to meet and hopefully exceed the modest goal they set of 10 million people insured on the exchanges at the end of 2016.

Two million calls to its call center on December 14 and 15.

This means finishing the job on coverage expansion for the 36 million people who still lack health insurance, getting serious about reining in costs and tackling health disparities from infant mortality to heart disease.