Since March 31, roughly 400,000 more people have enrolled in health plans through the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act exchanges, HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius told the Senate Finance Committee yesterday, according to an AHA News report.
That means a total of 7.5 million people have signed up for coverage through the exchanges. Although the 2014 open enrollment period officially ended on the last day of March, the Obama administration extended the deadline to April 15 for people who started signing up for coverage before the deadline but were unable to complete the process. Additionally, federal officials have indicated people who encounter more serious technical problems, such as system errors while trying to prove immigration status or applications getting lost in transfer to health plans, will have at least 60 days from the occurrence of the problem to sign up.
Last week, President Barack Obama announced the exchanges had enrolled 7.1 million people as of March 31, well beyond the most recent Congressional Budget Office projection of 6 million.
Despite the exchanges' ultimate success in exceeding enrollment goals, Ms. Sebelius is resigning today, months after the glitch-ridden rollout for the federal health insurance exchange website, HealthCare.gov. Although Ms. Sebelius and the White House have stood firm against Republican lawmakers' calls for her to step down over the exchange site's bumpy rollout, she reportedly informed the president in early March of her decision to step down. Denis R. McDonough, the White House chief of staff, told The New York Times that Ms. Sebelius told the president it would be better to have someone running HHS who wasn't the target of so much political animosity.
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