6 Reasons Why Obamacare Enrollment Is Going Better Than You Think
he Wall Street Journal reported on Monday that between 40,000 and 50,000 uninsured Americans signed up for health care coverage in the 36 states where the federal government is running the Obamacare exchanges, offering the very first estimate of the administration’s progress in implementing the Affordable Care Act. The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is expected to release official figures later this week. That number “will include people who have paid for a health plan and those who simply picked a plan and put it in their online shopping cart,” the Washington Post notes.
But the initial estimate doesn’t tell the whole story about how many people are connecting to coverage. Here is what you need to know about the enrollment figures:
1. More than 500,000 have signed up for insurance overall. Avalere Health, a consulting firm tracking sign-ups, estimates that at least 440,000 people have signed up for Medicaid and another 49,000 people enrolled in coverage in 12 states and the District of Columbia that are operating their own exchanges. Significantly, that state number don’t appear to include enrollment from California, Massachusetts, or Oregon. Thus, all told, more than 529,000 have enrolled in coverage.
http://thinkprogress.org/health/2013/11/12/2923931/obamacare-enrollment-going-better-think/