If Donald Trump or any Republican who might manage to win the White House and tries to dump the Affordable Care Act aka ObamaCare… it’s looking more and more like that’s not going to be easy to do.
According to reports, almost 8.3 million people have enrolled in ObamaCare plans, putting the administration well ahead of last year’s total at the same point in the sign-up season.
Federal health officials announced the latest figures on Tuesday, touting stronger-than-expected demand in December as healthcare customers race to find or switch plans ahead of the deadline to sign up for coverage beginning 2016.
The quicker pace likely indicates people are seeking to avoid the higher cost of being uninsured in 2016. People without insurance by tax season will face far steeper penalties, almost double the fee from the previous year, reports The Hill.
Of the 8.3 million sign-ups, about 2.4 million are new to the marketplace — a figure that is one-third higher than last year’s new total at the same distance from the deadline.
Significantly, this year’s sign-ups include 2.1 million people under age 35 — nearly double the number of young people enrolled during the same period last year.
“We’re excited in terms of what it means for health security and financial security. We’re excited about the fact that it does mean a younger risk pool, which is generally stronger,” Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Sylvia Mathews Burwell announced on a conference call with supporters Tuesday.
The growing diversity of the marketplace will be welcome news to health insurance companies, many of which remain worried that customers are older, and therefore costlier to cover, than they had originally expected.
Read the FULL report at The Hill.
article via eurweb.com
Posts tagged as “Department of Health and Human Services”
About half a million people selected a health insurance plan in the first week of the 2015 enrollment period under the Affordable Care Act, according to a new federal report that underscores huge progress since last year, when website problems made signing up for coverage nearly impossible.
From Nov. 15 to Nov. 21, the Department of Health and Human Services announced, 462,125 people signed up for a plan through HealthCare.gov, the federally run insurance marketplace that serves 37 states nationwide.
Tens of thousands of additional people signed up for coverage on state-run marketplaces in the remaining 13 states, including California, Maryland and Connecticut, and the District of Columbia. California reported last week that more than 11,000 people had selected plans in the first four days of open enrollment.
The HealthCare.gov total — which is split roughly evenly between new enrollees and people renewing coverage they had in 2014 — is a major advance from last year, when the website did not work for more than a month.
Just 106,000 people signed up for coverage in the first month of open enrollment last year.
This year, it appears that the site is working far better. Administration officials said Wednesday it had not crashed since it opened, though it had twice directed users to an online “waiting room” that is deployed when there is high volume or other technical issues with the site.
In total, more than 3.7 million users visited HealthCare.gov in the first week of the new enrollment period, according to the health agency.
And in another indication of improvement, wait times at call centers around the country averaged only a little more than three minutes.
Still, it remains unclear whether the Obama administration will be able to hit enrollment targets by the time the sign-up period closes in 2 1/2 months.
The tally released Wednesday counts only plan selections, not the number of people who have paid premiums, which is usually lower. Consumers have until the middle of December to pay in order to guarantee they have coverage starting Jan. 1.
WASHINGTON (AP) — A growing share of Americans got health insurance as sign-up season for President Barack Obama‘s health care law came to a close last month, a major survey released Monday has found.
The Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index provides independent validation for White House claims that the law is expanding access, particularly for working people with no coverage on the job. But the improvement, while substantial, doesn’t appear as large as some of the numbers claimed by the law’s supporters.
Gallup found that the share of adults without health insurance shrank from 17.1 percent at the end of last year to 15.6 percent for the first three months of 2014. The decline of 1.5 percentage points would translate roughly to more than 3.5 million people gaining coverage. The trend accelerated as the March 31 enrollment deadline loomed.
“The Affordable Care Act, commonly referred to as `Obamacare,’ appears to be accomplishing its goal of increasing the percentage of Americans with health insurance,” said Gallup’s analysis of the findings.
The survey is important because it combines the quick turnaround of media polls with extensive outreach usually seen in government research. Gallup interviewed more than 43,500 adults, or more than 40 times the number in a typical national media poll. Coming a week after the close of the health care law’s first enrollment season, Gallup’s numbers suggest a more modest impact on coverage than statistics cited by the Obama administration.
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The administration says more than 7 million have signed up for subsidized private plans through new insurance markets. Additionally, 3 million previously uninsured people gained coverage through the law’s Medicaid expansion. Millions more remain potentially eligible for marketplace coverage under various extensions issued by the administration. White House senior adviser Dan Pfeiffer said this weekend on CBS that 200,000 people who had started applications but weren’t able to finish by the deadline got signed up later in the week.
LITHONIA, GA – Congressman Hank Johnson has just announced a $1.2 million federal grant to a metro Atlanta community-based project that is committed to helping offenders straighten out their lives. Standing to Achieve New Directions (STAND, Inc.) will receive the award from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), a branch of the Department of Health and Human Services. The non-profit organization, established in 1999, provides services for ex-inmates, with an emphasis on rehabilitating former prisoners and helping repeat offenders break their cycle of crime.
“It’s absolutely critical to bridge a pathway for individuals coming out of incarceration experiences so they can successfully reintegrate into society,” says Charles Sperling, executive director and founder of STAND. The grant monies will facilitate a new initiative, launched this month, to support about 90 newly released inmates every year over a period of three years. The scheme, which is offered on a voluntary basis, will provide a spectrum of resources and support, from behavior health services and housing to employment needs.
“STAND has a proven track record of helping former inmates turn their lives around,” said Rep. Hank Johnson (D-Ga.), in a statement. “Encouraging people released from prison to be productive members of society not only strengthens our communities; it saves taxpayers billions of dollars.”