Those figures are about 200,000 lower than they were at the same time last year.
New HealthCare.gov data has shown that Obamacare enrollment has dropped by about 200,000 since last year. This has brought the current numbers to 8.3 million on the federal exchange site, said the U.S. government.
The data is only preliminary, but it indicates that Americans haven’t enrolled at the same rate.
The Obamacare enrollment data includes only the sign-ups made through the HealthCare.gov federal exchange site. It includes the numbers as of December 17, and therefore includes the consumers who used the extension granted to them as the site was unable to process enrollments on December 15. That latter date was meant to be the official final date but the extension was granted out of fairness to those whose sign-ups were not able to be processed that day.
Still, these figures do not include the final 2020 Exchange Open Enrollment figures, said the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (C.M.S.). The reason is that the C.M.S. extended the final deadline to December 18 due to the technical issues.
The CMS showed that a half million new Obamacare enrollment sign-ups occurred on December 15 alone.
That said, by the same time last year, 8.5 million people had enrolled for health insurance coverage for 2019. This means that the enrollments for 2020 are about 4 percent lower than they were for 2019.
“Through the first six weeks of open enrollment, the comparable daily average number of plan selections was running 2.5% behind last year’s pace,” said Michael Newshel, an Evercore ISI analyst in a Reuters report.
The C.M.S. runs health plan enrollments for the insurance coverage created by the Affordable Care Act frequently known as Obamacare as it is commonly known as former President Barack Obama’s signature domestic achievement. The HealthCare.gov site currently provides the exchange for 38 states. That said, thirteen states (including Washington D.C.) have their own state-based health insurance exchanges for their residents to use to sign up.
The federal HealthCare.gov platform currently comprises 73 percent of the national Obamacare enrollment. State-based exchanges represent 24 percent of national Affordable Care Act sign-ups, said Newshel’s data.