Per White House spokesman Jay Carney on Tuesday, the total number of people who have signed up for private insurance plans on the health marketplaces has exceeded 7 million. At the press conference on Tuesday, Carney stated that the total tally right now is at 7,041,000. However, this does not include any enrollment figures from Monday for the separately run state-based exchanges.
On top of that, there are still people that are eligible to complete their applications for insurance over the next couple of weeks. As long as they began the application process prior to Monday evening, they will have additional time to complete the process. The numbers from the states and these final enrollees should nudge the final tally up quite a bit. The end result is that the number of people that signed up for health insurance plans through the state and federal exchanges exceeded the initial and revised estimates by the Congressional Budget Office.
The amount of volume that the federal exchange’s website, Healthcare.gov, and the call centers experienced on Monday was nothing short of phenomenal. Healthcare.gov had more than 4.8 million visits while the call centers received more than 2.5 million calls on the final day of enrollment. CNN reports that an official with inside knowledge states that young people made up a significant portion of the final day’s surge.
President Obama has an address from the Rose Garden scheduled for 4:15 PM ET. He will likely discuss the enrollment numbers and point out that the ACA exceeded the first-year goals for enrollment. My guess is he will also point out that around 10 million people who were previously uninsured now have coverage thanks to the ACA. Besides buying private health plans, other people were able to get coverage through Medicaid expansion. Also, young adults were able to hop onto their parents’ plans.
Despite Republican obstruction and intransigence, the health care law bucked the odds. Why? Because millions of people wanted health coverage. As President Obama knew from the beginning, if you provide something that millions of everyday people need and want, then they will find a way to get it, even if someone is standing in their way.
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