"Obamacare: Where's The Train Wreck?"
So Far, 6.4 Million Obtain Health Care Coverage for 2015 in Federal Marketplace
WASHINGTON — The Obama administration said Tuesday that 6.4 million people had selected health insurance plans or had been automatically re-enrolled in coverage through the federal insurance marketplace.
New customers accounted for 30 percent of the total, or 1.9 million.
For 2014 enrollees who took no action by Dec. 15, coverage was automatically renewed for 2015 by the federal government.
Sylvia Mathews Burwell, the secretary of health and human services, who is in charge of the federal marketplace, said she did not know how many people had been automatically re-enrolled by her department. But she and her aides suggested that the number was in the range from 2.7 million to three million.
Dec. 15 was the deadline to sign up for coverage that would start on Jan. 1. The automatic or passive re-enrollments, combined with a surge of interest among consumers just before the deadline, produced a big increase in activity in the federal marketplace. People could sign up a first time, switch to new plans, choose to extend coverage in their current plans for a year, or do nothing and be re-enrolled in the same or similar plans.
Is the Affordable Care Act Working?
In the first four weeks of the three-month open enrollment period, through Dec. 12, nearly 2.5 million people selected health plans, the administration said. In the week after that, more than 3.9 million people signed up or had their coverage automatically renewed, lifting the total to 6.4 million. The enrollment period ends on Feb. 15.
Officials said that about 35 to 40 percent of people already enrolled had returned to the online marketplace, allowing them to shop for new health plans as the administration had recommended.
“This is an encouraging start,” Ms. Burwell said, but she added, “We still have a lot of work to do.”
The administration has been more successful in signing up new customers than in changing public opinion of the health care law. Polls show that people’s views remain deeply divided, with those holding unfavorable opinions of the law slightly outnumbering those with favorable opinions.
The new enrollment numbers do not include people signing up for insurance through state-run exchanges like those in California, New York and 11 other states. Taking account of federal and state exchanges, officials said they were on track to meet their goal of having a total of 9.1 million people enrolled and paying premiums next year.
Those who go without coverage in 2015 may be subject to tax penalties that could approach 2 percent of household income for some taxpayers.
HealthCare.gov, the website for the federal marketplace, is working much better than last year, but the back end of the system, used to update enrollment information and to pay insurers, is still a work in progress, so federal officials often lack vital data.
As of mid-October, before the latest enrollment period began, 6.7 million people had insurance through the federal and state exchanges. But Ms. Burwell said Tuesday that she did not know how many of them were in the federal exchange, which now serves 37 states.
About 85 percent of people with marketplace coverage receive federal subsidies to help defray the cost. Critics of the law have challenged the authority of the federal government to pay those subsides for insurance bought in the federal marketplace. They contend that the Affordable Care Act allows subsidies only for people who use an exchange established by a state.
The Supreme Court is considering those arguments in the case of King v. Burwell, which the court is scheduled to hear on March 4. Supporters of the health care law, who see the litigation as a threat to subsidies for millions of people, have urged the administration to develop contingency plans.
Ms. Burwell refused to say if she was working on such plans, but said she was confident that the administration would prevail in court.
“Nothing has changed in terms of the subsidies and assistance people can get,” Ms. Burwell said. “We believe that our position is the position that is correct and accurate.”
She said she had seen no evidence to suggest that “Congress intended for the people of New York to receive these benefits for affordable care, but not necessarily the people of Florida.”
Correction: December 23, 2014
An earlier version of this article incorrectly stated when the Obama administration said that 6.4 million Americans had obtained health care coverage through the federal marketplace. The information was provided Tuesday, not Monday.
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Much work still needed on health care sign-ups
12/23/2014
FILE - In this Nov. 17, 2014 file photo, Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Burwell speaks at Florida International University College of Law in Miami. Burwell says health law sign-ups are off to an encouraging start, but a lot of work is still needed to make the second open enrollment season a success.
WASHINGTON
The second sign-up season under President Barack Obama's health care law is off to a good start but there is a way to go to make it a success, administration officials said Tuesday.
Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia M. Burwell said 1.9 million new customers have picked a plan as of Dec. 19 through the federal insurance market that serves 37 states. Another 4.5 million have renewed existing coverage, with most automatically re-enrolled.
The numbers don't include states running their own insurance exchanges, including California and New York. The administration will release a full 50-state report next week, Burwell said.
"We still have a lot of work to do," she said. "But this is an encouraging start."
At her year-end news conference, Burwell dodged questions about a Supreme Court case seen as the most serious threat left to Obama's law. The case, King v. Burwell, will be argued in early March.
The health care law provides taxpayer-subsidized private insurance to people who don't have access to coverage through their jobs.
Plaintiffs in the Supreme Court case argue that the law, as written, only allows subsidies in states that have established their own insurance markets. Supporters of the law say that while the text may be confusing, Congress clearly intended to subsidize coverage in all 50 states.
Burwell wouldn't outline any contingency plans in the event the court rules against the administration.
"We believe that our position is the position that is correct and accurate," she said.
More than 8 in 10 customers in the insurance markets receive subsidies. Without them millions would be unable to afford their premiums. If the court's ruling goes against the administration, it's unclear if there would be a grace period while officials pursue a legislative fix or other solutions.
Burwell said Congress intended to offer consumers subsidies regardless of where they live. Florida, for example, did not set up its own market. But more than 900,000 Floridians enrolled for coverage through the federal exchange, which was created under the law as a backstop.
With the HealthCare.gov website running much better this year, Burwell has set a target of 9.1 million customers signed up and paying premiums in 2015.
Independent analysts believe the administration can meet or surpass that goal through a combination of returning customers and people signing up for the first time. The law prohibits insurers from turning people down because of health reasons. Virtually all Americans must have coverage or face fines.
This year, as the law's coverage expansion went into full swing, the number of uninsured people fell by more than 10 million. In addition to subsidized private insurance for the middle class, the law offers an expanded Medicaid program for low-income people in states that agree to it.
Open enrollment ends Feb. 15.
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