U.S. Releases Low 2015 Obamacare Enrollment Forecast

Source: REUTERS

(Reuters) - The U.S. administration on Monday dramatically cut expectations for 2015 Obamacare enrollment, saying between 9 million and 9.9 million people will enroll in private health plans, compared with a Congressional Budget Office (CBO) forecast of 13 million.

An Obama administration report, released just before the start of 2015 open enrollment on Saturday, also reduced the official count of 2014 enrollment to 7.1 million people as of Oct. 15, from 7.3 million in August. The change resulted in part from 112,000 people losing coverage because of unresolved application issues involving their citizenship or immigration status.

CBO, which has been a leading enrollment forecaster for Obamacare up to now, predicted that the private insurance marketplaces set up by the Affordable Care Act, better known as "Obamacare," would reach a mature 25 million paying customers by 2017.

But Monday's first-of-its-kind prediction by the Obama administration assumes that the marketplaces could take two years longer to mature, partly as a result of a slower than anticipated shift to Obamacare coverage by people who now obtain benefits from employers or through private plans sold outside the marketplaces.

Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/11/10/us-usa-healthcare-enrollment-idUSKCN0IU1XY20141110