Nearly 4.7 million people signed up for 2018 Obamacare plans through the federal healthcare.gov website as of this Saturday, according to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
Of the customers who have signed up, 3,299,885 were renewing coverage and 1,378,476 were new customers for the period that ended Dec. 9. People who buy their own health insurance can sign up for plans until Dec. 15, and they can qualify for government subsidies that help pay for their premiums, depending on their income.
While the numbers currently outpace the totals at the same time last year, they still have a long way to go to match the 9.2 million people who enrolled on the federal exchange for 2017, when the open enrollment period was twice as long.
A surge of sign-ups is expected during the final days of open enrollment. Further, people who don’t change their health plan, renew it themselves or cancel it will be automatically placed into a similar plan. These numbers could add millions to the total.
Democrats have accused the Trump administration of trying to sabotage Obamacare because it has cut the budget for navigators and advertisements on open enrollment in addition to shortening the sign-up period.
The numbers only include enrollment on the federal website, which serves residents of 39 states. The remaining states plus the District of Columbia have their own exchanges, some of which have longer open enrollment periods.
Nationwide, 12.2 million people signed up for plans last year, and as of June, 10.1 million people were still paying their premiums, meaning that some people had dropped out and others had joined under special enrollment allowances, like losing a job, moving or having a baby.
