Obamacare Late Surge May Signal Young, Healthy Sign-Ups
More than 1 million people waited until the last five days to sign up for 2014 health coverage under Obamacare, and early indications are that many were young minorities, insurance analysts and enrollment groups said.
That may be good news for health insurers who have been concerned that the customers enrolling in health plans through the new insurance exchanges are sicker and older than the average American.
About 7.1 million people signed up for private plans under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act by the close of the first enrollment period on March 31, President Barack Obama announced. The figure, a symbolic triumph for the president, met a year-old projection by the Congressional Budget Office that was thought out of reach after the exchanges were plagued by computer malfunctions last October.
“The enrollment surge is the best news possible for insurance companies,” Larry Levitt, senior vice president at the Kaiser Family Foundation, a Menlo Park, California-based nonprofit that tracks health programs, said yesterday in a phone interview.
Six million people had signed up by March 27. Enrollment events across the country were swarmed by late applicants last weekend, and the federal website, healthcare.gov, saw almost 8 million visits from March 29 to March 31. While computer errors again prevented many people from signing up on the deadline day, anyone who tried to enroll can complete the process this month, federal officials have said.
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http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-04-02/obamacare-late-surge-may-signal-young-healthy-sign-ups.html
