Nearly half a million people signed up on Healthcare.gov in first week

Daily Kos Staff

Wednesday November 26, 2014 · 8:49 AM PST

2014/11/26 · 08:49

Screenshot of 2015 Healthcare.gov home page

The administration is reporting that 462,125 people selected health insurance plans on the federal exchange, Healthcare.gov, in the first week of open enrollment. Nearly half—48 percent—were new customers, buying plans for the first time. That's good news, indicating that outreach to the uninsured is working and there could be another significant reduction in the uninsured rate after this round.

The new numbers, released by Health and Human Services Wednesday, show a faster start to open enrollment this year than in 2013. Last year, during Healthcare.gov'sched launch, only 106,185 consumers selected health insurance plans during the entire first month of enrollment.

These numbers are only for the federal exchange, and don't reflect enrollments in the 14 states that have their own exchanges. They also don't show actual enrollments, as those don't become official until after January 1 and the first premium payments are made. Another thing they don't include? Dental plan enrollments, which the administration maintains were more or less accidentally included in reports earlier this year. For the rest of the enrollment period, the administration will provide weekly "snapshot" enrollment figures, adding more transparency to the process.

For a full picture on sign-ups, including the states that have their own marketplaces, as always you can check out ACASignups.net from Charles Gaba, or look for his stories on Daily Kos as Brainwrap.

Nearly half a million people signed up on Healthcare.gov in first week

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