Obamacare enrollment may approach 18 million

[IronLionZion]

Two weeks after the president delivered the health care headline of the year—Obamacare enrollment reaches 8 million—the administration has published the story behind it.

In an issue brief released Thursday afternoon, health officials confirmed that 8 million people selected private (“marketplace”) health plans through the state and federal insurance exchanges during the enrollment period that ran from October 1 through April 19. An additional 4.8 million enrolled in Medicaid during that period, and an estimated 5 million bought individual policies outside the exchanges. Together, the figures push the six-month total to nearly 18 million.

No one knows exactly how many of the new enrollees were previously uninsured—the early estimates vary widely—but the new report suggests the coverage is expanding. Among the 5.2 million people who requested subsidies through the federal exchange, only 13% (695,000) reported having health insurance when they applied. It could take two more years to tease out the law’s impact on insurance coverage, but a recent Gallup poll suggests the uninsured population shrank by more than a percentage point (from 17.3% to 16.1%) between December and January, continuing a six-month decline.

The health care landscape still varies dramatically by region, but the gains in coverage weren’t limited to blue states. Hostile state officials have worked actively to undermine Obamacare in Texas, Florida and Georgia, but they were among the dozen states where enrollments doubled in March, helping to push the national total 2 million beyond the projected 6 million.



http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/obamacare-enrollment-may-approach-18-million

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