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The Biden administration announced Wednesday that nearly 16M Americans have signed up for healthcare plans through the Affordable Care Act (ACA) Marketplaces since the 2023 enrollment period began in November, indicating a ~13% rise from last year.
The ACA marketplaces were established following the passage of the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, in 2010. Many marketplaces started their Open Enrollment Periods (OEP) on Nov. 01 and run for five more days until Jan. 15 for Marketplaces using the HealthCare.gov platform.
The enrollment numbers are based on data through Jan. 07 (10 weeks) for the 33 Marketplaces using HealthCare.gov and nine-week data for 18 State-based Marketplaces, which could have extended enrollment deadlines.
The government said that out of 15.9M people who selected ACA plans during 2023 OEP, 3.1M (20% of the total) were new to the Marketplaces, and about 1.8M more people have signed up for ACA plans indicating a ~13% increase from last year.
UnitedHealth Group Inc. (NYSE:UHS), CVS Health (CVS), Centene Corp. (CNC), Cigna (CI) and Elevance (ELV) are among some of the health insurers with operations focused on ACA plans.
“We continue to see historic enrollment numbers due to increased financial assistance from the Inflation Reduction Act and new eligibility for families, but we’re not done yet,” Chiquita Brooks-LaSure, the administrator of Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) said.
As part of the IRA passed in August, the lawmakers introduced a five-year extension to enhanced subsidies given for people buying their health plans on the ACA Marketplaces.
Image and article originally from seekingalpha.com. Read the original article here.