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(Reuters) - The number of people enrolled in private health insurance under Obamacare has soared by more than one-third in recent weeks to around 3 million, according to government data released on Friday.

Marilyn Tavenner, administrator of the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), announced the preliminary tally in a blog posting. She forecast that enrollment through new federal and state health insurance marketplaces would continue to grow in coming weeks as a public outreach campaign accelerates.

The new data adds to evidence that President Barack Obama's administration has turned the corner on enrollment after a botched October 1 launch. It also shows that officials might still reach their initial goal of signing up 7 million people for private coverage by the time enrollment ends on March 31.

The latest tally is close to the 3.3 million mark that the administration originally expected by January 1 and reflects a January gain of about 800,000 enrollees, or 36 percent, from the 2.2 million total reported earlier this month for the October 1 through December 28 period.

Earlier this week, the administration also announced that the number of people eligible for Medicaid and the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP) rose to 6.3 million this month as a result of the enrollment effort. Medicaid and CHIP both benefit poor people and their expansion represents an integral part of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. Excerpts from http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/01/24/us-usa-healthcare-enrollment
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UPDATE: The Washington Post's Sarah Kliff reports that the new enrollment number is through Jan. 15, "so not the whole ball game for January" https://twitter.com/sarahkliff/status/426753105028341760

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The majority of the new enrollments are coming from people who had their previous coverage cancelled. And the balance of the enrollment has been into Medicaid and from those with high-cost existing medical problems.

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