(Bloomberg) Consumers waiting until the last minute to buy health coverage under Obamacare received a reprieve as a record 1 million users visited the U.S. online insurance marketplace.
The deadline to enroll in health plans that begin Jan. 1 was extended to midnight today from yesterday for most of the U.S., the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services said. The extension was announced as
President
That kind of willingness to do things manually, do whatever it takes to be done to make sure people do not get disappointed at key dates, is absolutely critical right now and there are indications that the feds are belatedly figuring that out, Aaron said in a phone interview.
Insurers had agreed to begin coverage at the start of 2014 for people who selected policies by the deadline as long as they send their first payments by Jan. 10. With the enrollment extension, people who buy plans from tomorrow through Jan. 15 will get coverage Feb. 1. The last deadline to sign up for a health plan in 2014 remains March 31.
Final decisions
We recognize that many have chosen to make their final decisions on todays deadline and we are committed to making sure they can do so, said Julie Bataille, a CMS spokeswoman.
While acceding to some of the late changes requested by the administration, insurers have resisted other concessions such as retroactive enrollment and out-of-network coverage. The enrollment extension was another irritant to the industry.
Health plans will continue to do everything they can to help consumers through the enrollment process and mitigate potential confusion or disruption caused by all of these last-minute changes to the rules and deadlines,
While enrollment had been sluggish from the Oct. 1 introduction of the marketplaces through November, sign-ups accelerated in December, Obama said at a Dec. 20 news conference. More than 500,000 people in the 36 states served by the federal exchange selected plans in the first three weeks of the month, the president said.
Obamas enrollment
Obamas staff, in a symbolic move, signed the president up for a health-care plan this past weekend through the District of Columbia exchange, said
Obamas exchange plan covers only himself, not his family, and the premium is less than $400 per month, the White House said.
Administration officials have said they anticipated the pace of enrollment would increase as the year-end coverage deadline approached. Similar increases have been seen by many of the 14 state-run exchanges, state officials said.
State statistics
In New York, about 168,000 people signed up in private plans sold through the state exchange, Jeremy Pelofsky of Ketchum Inc., a spokesman for New York State of Health, said yesterday in an e-mail. In
California planned to close enrollment yesterday for policies starting Jan. 1, Lee said, although anyone who started an application then will have coverage at the first of the year.
Weve been very clear that the 23rd is the deadline, Lee said. Weve also been very clear that were going to help people get across the finish line if theyve made a good-faith effort today.
In addition to the private plans, at least 3.9 million people have been found eligible for Medicaid, the state-run health program for the poor, or for state childrens health programs since the exchanges opened Oct. 1, CMS, the agency overseeing enrollment, said in a
The administration had set a goal of signing up 7 million people through the new federal and state insurance marketplaces by the March 31 end of the six-month enrollment period.
Obama earlier pushed back a key application deadline, delayed a small-business health exchange and extended a program for high-risk pools of sick Americans. On Dec. 19, his administration said hundreds of thousands of people whose health plans are being canceled because their coverage doesnt meet Obamacare rules will be exempt next year from the health laws mandate that all Americans carry medical insurance.