A substantially larger number of consumers selected a health plan through either the federal or a state-based exchange in November than did in October, the first month in which the enrollment period for the Affordable Care Act went into effect.
According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, over 250,000 individuals enrolled in a health plan in November, despite their being fewer days in the month than October. In the previous month, approximately 106,200 people without employee benefits signed up for a health policy.
Kathleen Sebelius, HHS secretary, indicated that while HealthCare.gov, may not be perfect, it's clear that it's better than it used to be, as evidenced by the jump in coverage enrollees.
"More and more Americans are finding that quality, affordable coverage is within reach and that they'll no longer need to worry about barriers they may have faced in the past – like being denied coverage because of a pre-existing condition," said Sebelius. "Now is the time to visit HealthCare.gov, to ensure you and your family have signed up in a private plan of your choice by Dec. 23 for coverage starting Jan. 1."
She added that the open enrollment period ends on March 31, so consumers still have plenty of time to enroll if they haven't already.
Speaking of which, many of those who visited the website started the sign-up process but didn't actually select a plan. When those people are taken into consideration, there were almost 2 million sign-ups, HHS reported. Further, adding up all the people who visited the state-based exchanges and the federal one, there were over 39 million unique visitors to the marketplace websites through October, November and the first week of December.
Verified enrollments are short of the number that was predicted by health officials. The projected total by the end of November was 1.2 million.
