WASHINGTON — At least 7.1 million people so far have enrolled in 2015 health plans through the Affordable Care Act insurance marketplaces, according to two federal reports issued Tuesday.
As of Dec. 26, 6.5 million people signed up for coverage in federally run exchanges — that includes new enrollments, people actively re-enrolling and existing customers who allowed their coverage to renew automatically, according to the Department of Health and Human Services’ weekly update.
A second HHS report, which provides the most comprehensive look at the new enrollment period, found that 633,000 people selected coverage in the 14 states running their own health insurance marketplaces as of Dec. 15. That’s in addition to those who signed up through the federal exchanges, for a total of roughly 7.1 million.
Some 36,238 have enrolled through the Colorado exchange for 2015, according to HHS.
About half of those enrolling are first-timers and half are returning.
The administration’s goal is 9.1 million customers signed up and paying premiums in 2015, independent experts said. But they predicted the program won’t meet another target: the 13 million enrollments forecast by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office in 2015.
“It would take a massive surge in enrollment over the next six weeks” to reach 13 million, said Larry Levitt of the nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation.
Experts say that for the program to be sustainable it must exceed the goal set by the administration.
The enrollment period is scheduled to end Feb. 15, just a few weeks before the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments on a lawsuit challenging the legality of subsidies provided through the federal-run exchanges. If the Supreme Court agrees that the law only authorizes subsidies in states that set up their own exchanges, that would invalidate financial assistance to millions of enrollees in states relying on .
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
