More People Signed Up for Obamacare in the First Two Days of December Than in All of October

[JaneyVee]

After a (very!) rough first two months, things are finally starting to pick up for healthcare.gov. Politico with the early December numbers:

About 29,000 people signed up for health insurance through HealthCare.gov on Sunday and Monday - a figure that surpasses the total for the whole month of October, an official familiar with the program told POLITICO. ... The preliminary numbers for the two-day period provide the clearest evidence yet that the federal exchange is on the mend. About 26,000 people selected a health plan during October and about 100,000 people did so in November, the official said.

The new numbers come as the White House is at the start of a three-week blitz to relaunch and reboot the Obamacare website. Democrats plan on emphasizing a different benefit of the landmark law each and every day between now and the Dec. 23 enrollment deadline for Jan. 1 coverage. The steep upswing in enrollments is obviously good news for Obama, but it's important to remember that headlines such as the one at the top of this post wouldn't exist if it weren't for where the enrollment bar was set when the website first went live: Only six people signed up for coverage on the first day the site was open, a figure that climbed to 248 on by Day 3.

Then again, it's also worth noting that what we're seeing now—a sharp rise in the number of people signing up for insurance relatively late in the enrollment game–is more or less what the administration had been projecting all along (albeit obviously without the early disaster that was healthcare.gov during its first month).

Link: http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2013/12/04/obamacare_enrollment_numbers_29_000_people_signed_up_through_healthcare.html

[GladRagDahl]

1. some improvement

but the magic number is still 7 million in order to be fiscally viable. There's a long way to go before we can crow about it.

[factsarenotfair]

2. I talked to someone who thinks his hypenated last name is causing him trouble in signing up.

So I told him to call.

[Swede Atlanta]

3. Yes, the demand is there............

the problem has been the delivery system.

Look, I don't fault those that received the cancellation notifications in the mail from being angry and feeling they were "lied to". They were lied to by this President.

He chose his words poorly and probably failed to fully understand the implications of the law on existing policies. Whether intentionally or by omission/lack of information he projected somethings that are not true under current law.

But I believe there will be significant uptake of Obamacare. The net benefits to the country will be significant.

It is, however, a slow, uphill battle. GOP is telling younger people not to sign up when this is their signature plan that relies on balancing the cost of providing care to old farts with not needing to provide it to young bucks. This is how an actuarial product works. This is how the GOP through the Heritage Foundation, framed it.