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Obamacare Enrollment Exploded In December To 2.2 Million

The December enrollment surge for the Affordable Care Act that the Obama administration long predicted -- and desperately needed -- has come to fruition.

As of Dec. 28, 2.2 million Americans have enrolled in private health coverage, according to new data released Monday by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. More than 1.8 million of them signed up in December alone, a huge spike that has gotten the law closer to its original goals than most would have thought possible after HealthCare.gov's disastrous rollout in October.

The administration's original projection was 3.3 million enrollments in private health insurance by the end of 2013, so Obamacare isn't quite back on track yet. But considering the combined total in October and November was less than the administration had targeted for just the month of October, it's much closer to the mark.

"In terms of total enrollment, 2.2 million is relatively strong turn-out given massive IT challenges in October and November," said Caroline Pearson, vice president at Avalere Health, an independent consulting firm. "These enrollment figures are encouraging for this stage in the process, especially with all the early systems problems they experienced," Larry Levitt, senior vice president at the non-partisan Kaiser Family Foundation, said. "We’re at halftime in the open enrollment period."

Perhaps as a sign that the federal website is genuinely working better, enrollment through HealthCare.gov, which serves 36 states, finally eclipsed enrollment through the 14 (plus D.C.) state-based websites: 1.2 million versus 1 million. Some of the larger states using HealthCare.gov, like Florida and North Carolina, which had previously trailed smaller state-based sites like Kentucky in enrollment, also saw their enrollment skyrocket and become more proportional to their share of the population. http://talkingpointsmemo.com/dc/obamacare-december-enrollment-numbers

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The Obama administration has just released the enrollment report that health wonks around the world have anxiously awaited: The one that shows the age breakdown of people selecting insurance plans under Obamacare.

It shows okay news for the White House: Twenty-four percent of those purchasing coverage are young adults, the coveted age group between 18 and 34 -- the exact group the White House thinks it really, really needs to enroll to make the health-care law work.

Is 24 percent of sign-ups coming in among young adults bad news for the Affordable Care Act? It is, obviously, lower than the targeted 40 percent. At the same time, it's also higher than where Massachusetts's young adult enrollment started back in 2006, when the state expanded coverage. It saw young adult enrollment steadily grow, over the course of open enrollment, to make up a larger chunk of overall sign-ups.

And during December, there was an eight-fold increase in young adults selecting plans through the exchanges, which does suggest a decent number of shoppers were waiting to purchase coverage until the third month they could sign up.

Most health policy experts generally expected younger and healthier adults to wait until the end of open enrollment, which runs through March 31, to purchase coverage. Whereas those who are older and sicker would have immediate health-care needs and would jump at the chance to buy coverage, healthier shoppers would likely be more comfortable waiting a few months -- saving some money by not paying premiums -- and purchasing coverage sometime in the late winter or early spring.

"All evidence suggests the pace will increase," says Aaron Smith, executive director of pro-health law group Young Invincibles. "Young people want to explore their options before they make their decisions. "I think the 24 percent number suggests we're on the right track." http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2014/01/13/one-in-four
-obamacare-enrollees-are-young-adults-thats-below-the-target/

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