More than 11.3 million Americans have signed up for Obamacare plans around the country, the Obama administration announced Thursday.
That total exceeds the 10 million enrollment goal the administration set at the beginning of the third sign-up season, but the number is certain to decline somewhat as some people fail to pay their monthly premiums or drop the coverage during the year.
In recognition of that reality, administration officials are expressing optimism that enrollment is going well but aren’t claiming victory just yet.
“We are pleased with what we’ve seen thus far, but we are not yet addressing the projection we put together,” Andy Slavitt, acting administrator for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, told reporters Thursday afternoon.
The 11.3 million enrollees include 8.6 million people living in states using healthcare.gov, the federal Obamacare website, and 2.7 million people living in the 13 states running their own insurance marketplaces. The numbers include anyone who has actively selected a plan or been automatically re-enrolled, regardless of whether they paid their first month’s premium.
Enrollment in the third Obamacare enrollment seasons ends Jan. 31, leaving the Obama administration a few more weeks to urge people to sign up. While the administration has prolonged the signup season in the past, officials said Thursday they have no intention of doing so this year.
“There will not be a special enrollment period,” Slavitt said.
A key question during this enrollment season is whether enough young, healthy people will sign up for plans, which in turn could help tamp down rising premium costs. Of all the enrollees signed up through healthcare.gov so far, about 26 percent are ages 18 to 35, according to an enrollment snapshot from the Department of Health and Human Services.
That’s a similar percentage of young enrollees as the number at the end of last enrollment season, but officials said they’re still encouraged because they had expected many young people to wait until the last minute to sign up for coverage. They still expect a boom in signups among that age group closer to the end of January.
