http://www.politico.com/story/2015/02/obamacare-enrollment-2015-114-million-115270.html?hp=rc1_4Obamacare enrolls 11.4 million, exceeds White House goal
By Jennifer Haberkorn
2/17/15 7:59 PM EST
The Obama administration signed up about 11.4 million people for health coverage during Obamacare’s second enrollment period, exceeding its modest enrollment goal with a final-day rush.
The White House trumpeted the figures Tuesday evening via a video posted on social media. In it, HHS Secretary Sylvia Mathews Burwell gives President Barack Obama the preliminary estimates of who “signed up or re-enrolled” from the start of enrollment Nov. 15 to its conclusion Sunday.
Late last year, Burwell had said the administration’s goal was to enroll up to 11.2 million. It expects 9.1 million to pay their premiums and keep coverage in effect through 2015.
“It gives you some sense of how hungry people were out there for affordable, accessible health insurance,” Obama responds in the video. “The Affordable Care Act is working. It’s working a little bit better than we anticipated. It’s certainly working a lot better, I think, than many of the critics talked about early on.”
Sunday saw the highest enrollment numbers of either sign-up period, Burwell said.
The 11.4 million figure includes customers who have paid their first month’s premium and those who still have time to do so before their coverage is set to start.
The administration’s targets were less than the Congressional Budget Office’s estimate that 12 million people would have coverage through the Obamacare exchanges at some point during 2015.
During the 2014 enrollment period — which lasted six months, or twice as long — a total of 8 million people signed up through the exchanges. But by August, the administration estimated that 6.7 million had actually paid for coverage and stuck with it. Some movement on and off the exchanges is expected in any year as people change jobs or income levels, for instance.
Despite Sunday’s deadline, Obamacare enrollment for 2015 may not be over. The administration is giving anyone who had started but not completed an application by the deadline until next weekend to finish up — and so that 11.4 million will inevitably grow.
In addition, officials are considering holding a special enrollment period around tax-filing time to target those consumers who learn that they’ll be fined under the health care law’s individual mandate for not having coverage last year — and want to avoid a penalty for remaining uninsured this year.
The fine for not having coverage in 2014 is $95 or 1 percent of one’s household income, whichever is larger. In 2015, the penalty increases to $325 or 2 percent of household income, again depending on which is larger.
Burwell told POLITICO in a interview on Friday that the administration will announce in the next two weeks whether to hold a special enrollment period.
