HHS reports 6 million signups so far for Obamacare next year. Nearly 6.4 million people were enrolled in the federal Obamacare marketplace one month into the 2015 signup season, a pace that Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Mathews Burwell on Tuesday called a good start. “People are shopping for coverage and people are signing up,” Burwell said at a news conference where she personally announced the latest numbers. “We still have a ways to go and a lot of work before Feb. 15, but we do have an encouraging start,” she added. The pace puts HHS well on the way to its goal of having more than 9 million people covered in state and federal exchanges in 2015. The sign-up season ends Feb. 15. Nearly 2 million of those 6,394,046 people were newcomers who were signing up for the first time through HealthCare.gov. Burwell estimated that more than 60 percent of the approximately 4.4 million returning consumers were automatically re-enrolled in their 2014 plan or a similar one. But HHS didn’t release precise numbers yet. The new figures do not include sign-ups from the state-based exchanges in 13 states and the District of Columbia. HHS will release a more detailed state-by-state breakdown later. Insurers had worried that the automatic renewals would be cumbersome — and glitches may yet emerge when people get their bills for January. But insurers said for now it seems to be running well. HHS sent initial re-enrollment files to carriers last week, allowing them to quickly begin sending out January bills to renewing clients and insurance cards to new enrollees, said Justine Handelman, vice president of legislative and regulatory policy for the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association. “We were pleased at the time frame that they were able to get those files to carriers,” she said Tuesday. Handelman said the industry had expected a lot of people to opt for auto-enrollment, rather than returning to the website to shop around or renew their existing coverage. Burwell said the HealthCare.gov automatic-renewal process was completed between Dec. 16 and Dec. 18, and only 2 percent of federal exchange enrollees from the first year were unable to go through that process, including some from Oregon who couldn’t be automatically re-enrolled now that the state has switched to the federal portal. The secretary, who took office six months ago, was brought in to make sure that this enrollment season goes far more smoothly than the earlier technological debacle. But the law’s future is far from certain. A Republican-controlled Congress is intent on undermining the Affordable Care Act in 2015 and a pivotal Supreme Court case known as King v. Burwell will determine if people in 37 states using the federal exchange can get the law’s generous tax subsidies to buy coverage. The court will hear the case on March 4. Burwell on Tuesday insisted several times that the administration is not doing contingency planning. If the administration loses in King, it would mean that only people in state-run exchanges could get the subsidies. “We believe our position is the position that is correct and accurate,” Burwell told reporters. “The idea that the Congress intended for the people of New York to receive these benefits for affordable care but not necessarily the people of Florida — we believe we have the right position.” During 2012, when the individual mandate was before the Supreme Court, former HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius never admitted to any contingency planning, either. Burwell stressed that people signing up now can still get their subsidies. “We are in a position where nothing has changed,” she said. Burwell said much of her focus is on expanding health coverage through state Medicaid expansion under the health law. She praised Republican governors in Tennessee, Wyoming and Utah for seeking to expand their programs next year and said the department will continue to work with other states, too. “We want to be flexible with states,” Burwell said. Those three states have all unveiled alternative Medicaid expansion proposals since the midterm elections, although each legislature must approve the plan and HHS must grant a waiver before expansion can proceed. Burwell said the timetable for expansion “depends on each state.” Read morepolitico/story/2014/12/obamacare-enrollment-numbers-113765.html?utm_campaign=KHN%3A+First+Edition&utm_source=hs_email&utm_medium=email&utm_content=15401998&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-_v7tZlpsO9jgXFFcR5viaNjz-79a3Fp3DJj1NJfPPBLV2jnp2JYqaGuIQiPUAKedrhBbnYWXTrmvLVH8chUi3n5p01eQ&_hsmi=15401998
Posted on: Wed, 24 Dec 2014 19:32:31 +0000