Obamacare enrollment in the federal marketplace has topped 4 million people as demand to meet a New Year’s coverage deadline has put a strain on call centers.
More than 1.3 million people signed up for Obamacare using healthcare.gov, which covers about 38 states. That brings the total since the start of open enrollment to 4.17 million consumers, the administration said Wednesday.
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The news comes after the Obama administration decided to extend the deadline for signing up to get coverage by Jan. 1 from midnight on Tuesday to midnight on Thursday.
The enrollment figures released Wednesday account for the week of Dec. 6-12.
It shows the strain that call centers are under after unprecedented demand for people to sign up.
For instance, the average call center wait time was about 12 minutes for the fifth week of open enrollment that ended on Dec. 5. That number spiked to about 22 minutes last week, according to the administration.
About 500,000 more people called in to the call centers last week than the week of Dec. 5.
Calls to Spanish-speaking representatives increased by 33 percent last week.
