About 12.7 million Americans selected Obamacare plans during the third year of enrollment, a number that puts the Obama administration on track to meet its goal but falls short of other signup projections.
When signups ended Sunday at midnight, 9.6 million people had chosen plans using the federal website healthcare.gov, while another 3.1 million had selected coverage using state-based marketplaces, the Department of Health and Human Services announced Thursday afternoon.
“Open enrollment for 2016 is over and we are happy to report it was a success,” said Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Burwell. “These totals exceed our expectations.”
The totals will certainly decline over the next few months, as some enrollees will fail to pay their first month’s premium or fall off the rolls after maintaining coverage for only a few months.
At the end of last year’s enrollment in February, the Obama administration announced that 11.7 million Americans had selected marketplace plans on healthcare.gov or through state-run exchanges. But by June, the number of enrollees had fallen 15 percent to a total of 9.9 million.
At the start of this open enrollment season, officials had said they were aiming for 10 million customers who will pay their premiums throughout the year. If, like last year, about 15 percent of customers selecting plans eventually drop them, initial enrollment would need to be around 11.5 million.
The Congressional Budget Office, Congress’ official scorekeeper, recently estimated that 13 million people would buy plans through the marketplaces this year, although the agency downgraded its projection from 21 million customers it initially estimated for 2016.
That number is closer to more modest enrollment that some nonprofit policy groups had estimated. The Urban Institute, for example, had estimated that 13.6 million Americans would enroll last year.
