Alex Wayne

This year, sign-ups for private health plans in California, New York and other states that opted to build and run their own insurance markets has stagnated. Yet in more conservative parts of the country that declined to participate and where enrollment is run by the federal government, sign-ups have surged.

As many as 6 million U.S. taxpayers will have to pay a penalty of as much as 1 percent of income because they went without health insurance in part or all of 2014, the Treasury Department said.

As many as 6 million U.S. taxpayers will have to pay a penalty of as much as 1 percent of income because they went without health insurance in part or all of 2014, the Treasury Department said.

More than 1 million people used the U.S. Healthcare.gov system to sign up for Affordable Care Act plans in the seven days ending Dec. 12, the best week yet for enrollment in the program’s second year.

The Obama administration said it erroneously calculated the number of people with health coverage under the Affordable Care Act, incorrectly adding 380,000 dental subscribers to raise the total above 7 million.

On Saturday, the first day of enrollment for 2015 Obamacare plans, the federal insurance website was working well enough that 100,000 people submitted applications, U.S. health secretary Sylvia Mathews Burwell reported.

Potential Healthcare.gov customers can peek at 2015 prices for the program’s health plans today after the government said it would release a “window-shopping” feature overnight.

Walmart Stores Inc.’s move to eliminate health insurance for about 30,000 part-time workers underscores the mixed benefits of Obamacare for companies and their employees.

The Obama administration has announced a government workaround to allow employees of religious nonprofits access to birth-control coverage even if their employer has opted not to pay for such medicines.

The UnitedHealth Group Inc. executive whose Optum division helped states and the federal government fix Obamacare health exchanges will become second-in- command at the agency that runs the U.S. program.

A contractor the Obama administration hired to monitor progress on its health insurance website, Healthcare.gov, repeatedly warned the project was falling behind before the site failed in October, Senate Republicans said in a report.

This figure is about one-third less than previously estimated, after the Obama administration created exemptions from the fine.

Sylvia Mathews Burwell was confirmed Thursday by the U.S. Senate as the secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, replacing Kathleen Sebelius and signaling a new stage for Obamacare.

Washington, Virginia and Indiana have new carriers signed on for next year, evidence that competition is growing stiffer in the government-run marketplaces.

Three large health insurers including WellPoint Inc. and Aetna Inc. say that a high percentage of their new Obamacare customers are paying their first premiums, undermining a Republican criticism of enrollment in the program.

Obamacare reduced the percentage of U.S. adults without health insurance to its lowest point since 2008 even as the law remains unpopular with the public, separate surveys showed.

Higher consumer spending on health services, increased prescriptions for costly medications and more elective surgeries suggests Americans are using the insurance they gained under Obamacare.

Tuesday was the last day of a two-week health law extension for hundreds of thousands of people who couldn’t finish their enrollment by March 31, the official deadline to sign up for a federally subsidized insurance plan in 2014.

Kathleen Sebelius, the U.S. health secretary who steered the troubled rollout of President Barack Obama’s signature health care law, will resign just as the program topped its first-year enrollment goal, according to two people familiar with the decision.

About 400,000 people signed up for private health insurance under Obamacare since a deadline passed that was initially supposed to end enrollment, the U.S. health secretary said Thursday.