The state has now reported this figure, which represents the number of sign-ups over the last few weeks.
At the end of last week, the state of Washington released its figures for health insurance sign ups during the first few weeks of open enrollment, and what it said was that there have been about 10,000 residents of the state that have already taken part.
In 2013, there were almost 50,000 people who had enrolled for private health plans during the first four weeks.
Last year’s open enrollment for buying health insurance started on October 1. This year’s began on November 15. During the entire open enrollment window, last year, there was a total of about 130,000 people who signed up for their insurance coverage in Washington. Among those who signed up last year, there have already been 46,000 residents that have already renewed their health plans using the Washington Healthplanfinder, this year.
This has occurred in less than a month since the health insurance open enrollment began on November 15.
There are also 480,000 new adults that have already accessed their free coverage through the Washington Apple Health, which is the state’s version of Medicaid. The residents of the state still have a little bit more time to be able to sign up – and pay – for the health plan that they require under the individual mandate of the Affordable Care Act. This will be necessary if they want their coverage to start on the first day of 2015.
Officials from the Washington insurance exchange are also hoping that another 85,000 people will still sign up for their private coverage during the current enrollment period that is going to continue on until February 15. They are also hoping that they will be able to achieve a 100 percent renewal rate among those who had already purchased coverage last year. This would mean that 215,000 people who purchased their policies through the exchange, last year, will need to do so again this year.
At the end of last week, officials also reported that between 4,000 and 6,000 customer accounts had been the victim of a computer problem that occurred on December 2, which wrongly cancelled them. That said, they have since been reinstated.