With One Month Left To Sign Up For Health Coverage, Obamacare Enrollments Surpass 4.2 Million Mark

By Sy Mukherjee

Just one day after Gallup released a new survey finding that the U.S. uninsurance rate has hit a second consecutive five-year low, the Obama administration announced that more than 4.2 million Americans enrolled in private health plans through the Affordable Care Act’s state and federal marketplaces during the first five months of the health law’s open enrollment season.

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released revised figures last month projecting that approximately six million Americans are expected to sign up for private Obamacare plans by March 31. The latest numbers released today indicate that the administration will at least come close to hitting that mark.

February’s enrollment figure is slightly lower than January’s high-mark of 1.1 million signups. But administration officials were quick to point out that number is expected to surge again next month, citing past experiences with enrollment periods for comparison.

“While the total number of new Marketplace plan selections was slightly lower in February when compared with the previous month of January (942,000 versus 1,146,000, respectively), the rate of Marketplace plan selections is expected to increase as the March 31, 2014 end of the initial open enrollment period approaches,” wrote the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS)...In an encouraging sign for the stability of Obamacare’s marketplaces, the White House reported that enrollment by younger Americans aged 18 to 34 remained stable between January and February at 27 percent of all signups — a three percentage point rise over the average for the first three months.

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http://thinkprogress.org/health/2014/03/11/3392331/obamacare-enrollments-surpass-42-million-in-february/