“The unprecedented demand and the millions of new customers who have signed up for health insurance send a clear message: The marketplaces meet an important need that had gone unanswered for too long” Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Mathews Burwell said in a statement. A consumer can make a change to their plan any time before the end of Open Enrollment on January 31, 2016.
Advertisement
Bowe Bergdahl Arraigned Sans Plea on Desertion, Misbehavior
Bergdahl reportedly deserted his unit in Afghanistan in 2009, and he was held captive by the Taliban for five years. Bergdahl was reassigned to administrative work at a US Army base in Texas, but an investigation had been launched.
It also reports that about 80 percent who enrolled qualify for financial help to pay for their health care coverage.
US Resumes Plutonium-238 Production After 30 Years For Nuclear Batteries
The production process begins in Idaho, where neptunium-237 feedstock is housed and shipped to the Tennessee facility as needed. Future missions powered by RTGs may include investigative journeys to the water-hosting moons of Jupiter and Saturn.
The enrollment figures come at a time when expectations for 2016 sign-ups have been tempered. The re-enrollment process has not yet been completed so as it continues, upcoming snapshots will include additional consumers who were automatically re-enrolled after December 19.
QUIZ: Which Star Wars: The Force Awakens Man Is Your Soulmate?
Although The Force Awakens has conquered the world of cinema, Episode VII director J.J. You didn’t understand what these references were: the Empire, dark times , Clone Wars .
Exchange officials have said there was significant flux in the marketplace’s membership, with thousands of people dropping off coverage and thousands signing up throughout the year. Monthly premiums for their plans will be 8.43 percent higher, on average, than they were in 2015.
Enrollments among people younger than 35 grew from about 1.1 million a year ago to 2.1 million this year.
“As Open Enrollment proceeds, we’re not taking our foot off the gas pedal”.
These numbers only include the 38 states using HealthCare.gov, so large states with their own programs, such as California and NY, are not included in this count. They declined to specify the exact number of such renewals but said in a briefing for reporters that “it is safe to say” the overall tally exceeds 2 million, which also would be slightly more than previous year.
Last year at this time, about 86,000 people had signed up for coverage scheduled to take effect at the start of the year. In fact, coverage will likely begin declining in the next few years, leaving millions more Americans uninsured than today.
The government said it estimated that more than 9.1 million people were enrolled for health coverage through HealthCare.gov and the state-based exchanges at the end of 2015.
Tuesday’s update amounted to a halftime report on the 2016 enrollment season. While consumers may have purchased insurance coverage through exchanges, their coverage may not become active on January 1 next year, which may leave them exposed to the federal penalty as well. I estimate the total number of uninsured in 2025 will be roughly 40 million – roughly as many uninsured Americans as there were before the law was passed.
Elizabeth Carpenter of the consulting firm Avalere Health said sign-ups seem to be on track to reach 11 million for 2016, after attrition. This will improve the risk pool of consumers to help create a “stronger, more stable” market, she said.
Advertisement
Information for this article was contributed by Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar of The Associated Press; by Zachary Tracer of Bloomberg News; and by Andy Davis of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.
