8.5 million enrolled in or renewed Obamacare so far in 2015
More than 8.5 million people have signed up for individual health plans through Obamacare’s government-run shopping market this year or had their coverage renewed, U.S. officials said Wednesday.
(There are 16,803 people in Hawaii who had Obamacare coverage in 2015. They registered through the Hawaii Health Connector but now must re-enroll through the federal healthcare.gov website. The U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which runs the Obamacare program, said that through Saturday 11,157 people in Hawaii had signed up for coverage on healthcare.gov.)
The report tallied enrollees for 2016 coverage in 38 states that use the Affordable Care Act’s federal marketplace, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services said. There was a Dec. 17 deadline for people to choose coverage that begins Jan. 1. About 8.3 million people had signed up through Dec. 19.
Health care industries such as hospitals and insurers as well as investors are watching the enrollment numbers closely to determine what they might expect in terms of future business. And sign-ups this year are particularly important for determining whether Obamacare is thriving in the lead-up to an election year.
The United States has estimated that about 9.9 million people will be enrolled in Obamacare plans by the end of 2016, compared with a projected 9.1 million at the close of 2015. Last year’s sign-up period began two weeks later, and an additional state, Hawaii, is using the federal exchange this year.
About 71 percent of people who signed up were renewing coverage, and 60 percent returned to healthcare.gov to update their information, check out their options or select a new plan, CMS said. The compares with less than 15 percent of enrollees in Medicare’s prescription drug plan who change their coverage any given year. People who shop around in the Obamacare market to find a plan with the same coverage level could save more than $600 a year, according to CMS.
People can still sign up for coverage that begins later in the year, and the data don’t include enrollment from states like New York and California, which run their own health insurance marketplaces. Jan. 15 is the last day to enroll or change plans for coverage starting Feb. 1, and Jan. 31 is the last day for coverage starting March 1.
Star-Advertiser reporter Kristen Consillio contributed to this story.
6 responses to “8.5 million enrolled in or renewed Obamacare so far in 2015”
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Great news… Obamacare is working well, contrary to what right wing critics are saying… Here’s a take from a leading economist…
“Given all that, the fact that the private sector has added more than twice as many jobs under that job-killing Obama as it did under pre-crisis Bush is important, not because Obama did it, but because it shows that there is no hint that the important things he did do had any negative effect at all, let alone the terrible effects right-wingers predicted. You can, it turns out, tax the rich, regulate the banks, and expand health insurance coverage without punishment by the invisible hand.”
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/12/30/presidents-and-the-economy/
Words to remember for the new election year.
wiliki= BS. the reality is ONLY 8.5 Million people in the entire country and ONLY 11 thousand in the entire state of Hawaii but the entire Country & our State has seen a major increase in the cost of insurance. The time it takes to see a doctor has gone from one or two days to now 45 to 60 days as the offices & hospitals are at a loss for doctors. The good doctors have moved on, quit or retired due to paperwork and re-imbursement rules. Now we pay for a family of 3 persons over $2000.00 per month for insurance and the co-payments have tripled. Who has this helped???????? and how is that working well.
ONLY 8 MILLION OUT OF 320 MILLION IN THE UNITED STATES AND 11OOO OUT OF 1.4 MILLION IN THE ISLANDS WHAT A JOKE OBAMACARE HAS BEEN AND IS
Without Obamacare the projected increases would be even larger.
Hawaii is a special case because our employers pay for insurance. We got this in the fifties because of Democrats. Hawaii Republicans insisted that the Feds were going to do something about it. but it takes a Democrat and 60 years of negotiating with Republicans for that. We inj Hawaii are still shy of 100 percent universal coverage. It takes Obamacare to get there.
Obamadon’tcare is a disgrace and a train wreck all at the same time, with a measly 8 million sign ups when Obama promised it would be over 11 million by now, and the billions of dollars paid by taxpayers that have vanished with virtually no one accountable. Now fines will go up this year and all the states who got subsidies for Medicaid start to see the Federal dollars slowly go away. This is far from success as some Obama sycophants want you to believe, just more smoke and mirrors for the Grubered.
Sociopathic, partisan governors are the reason that more people haven’t signed up. Republicans did everything they could to stop deployment but despite their efforts, the program is working.