Top U.S. Insurer Sees Weak Obamacare Sign-Ups, Prepares For Delay
By Caroline Humer and Susan Cornwell
Wed Nov 6, 2013 5:45pm EST
(Reuters) - A top U.S. health insurer gave the first detailed view of how the problem-plagued rollout of President Barack Obama's signature healthcare law is affecting the industry, saying on Wednesday it had cut its enrollment forecasts by at least a half and expected the government to delay the sign-up deadline.
Humana Inc said that because of technical problems preventing millions of Americans from accessing the federal HealthCare.gov website since it opened on October 1, the company had slashed its expectations of signing on 500,000 new plan members to an estimate of closer to 250,000.
The open enrollment period ends on March 31, and Republican and Democratic lawmakers are asking the Obama administration to give people more time to sign up for plans offered in online marketplaces. U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius rejected the idea at a Senate hearing on Wednesday.
"We are still at the beginning of a six-month open enrollment that ends at the end of March, and there's plenty of time to sign up for the new plans," she said.
The insurance industry has lobbied against an extension that would include delaying the law's penalty for Americans who do not obtain coverage by the end of March, saying it would leave them with a heavier concentration of sicker, costlier patients. That would create even greater business losses and higher prices for consumers down the road, and could require the federal government to come in and cover some of the damage.
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http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/11/06/us-humana-exchanges-idUSBRE9A50P620131106