Medical Billing Blog

Marketplace Enrollment Update: January 2014

Posted by Scott Shatzman on Mon, Jan, 27, 2014 @ 09:01 AM

Healthplan resized 600Approximately 3 million people have now enrolled in health insurance plans sold through marketplaces created by President Obama’s health law, the administration announced Friday. The milestone indicates nearly a million additional people have signed up since the end of December. It also suggests that the marketplaces are continuing to recover from a disastrous launch on Oct. 1. That still leaves the Obama administration lagging behind its initial projections for overall health law enrollment--but also closer to hitting monthly sign-up expectations it set back in September. The numbers are reassuring for supporters of the Affordable Care Act, who were worried that the pace of sign-ups for private plans would slow in January and February, before picking up again as the March 31 enrollment deadline for 2014 coverage approached. But they are still shy of initial projections from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which originally expected 4.4 million people to sign up for a plan by the end of January. Moreover, the administration has not provided data on how many of the people who have signed up for plans through the exchanges have actually made a payment, which is required to ensure coverage.