The Trump administration said Friday that 9.2 million people signed up for health coverage this year on the main Obamacare website, a drop-off of about 400,000 customers from last year’s effort.
Activity on HealthCare.gov had been running ahead of 2016 signups in the final weeks of President Obama’s tenure, despite rampant GOP talk of repeal, yet that enthusiasm appeared to wane ahead of the Jan. 31 deadline.
The update doesn’t include final data from a dozen state-run exchanges, although available figures show that at least 12 million people selected private coverage for the 2017 plan year under the Affordable Care Act, often with the help of taxpayer-funded subsidies.
Unless the remaining states report a robust finish, the law will fall short of Mr. Obama’s target of 13.8 million signups for this year.
“Signups are falling somewhat short of last year, which is movement in the wrong direction for improving the risk pool but hardly a collapse,” said Larry Levitt, a senior vice president at the nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation.
Democrats insist the law can still be fixed, yet congressional Republicans seeking to repeal and replace the law with President Trump said the federal update showed dwindling interest in the law and that numbers would droop further, since customers must effectuate their coverage by paying their first month’s bill.
Date: February 07, 2017