On the last day of the 2014 open enrollment period, the number of people who had enrolled in health plans through the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act exchanges broke 7 million, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said at a press briefing today, according to a report from The Hill.
Although analysts previously doubted the exchanges would secure sign-ups for 6 million people (the most recent Congressional Budget Office benchmark), President Barack Obama announced last week that the exchanges had reached that milestone.
"No one expected us to come back from the brink or to surpass the revised CBO projection that 6 million consumers would sign up in year one, but we have," Mr. Carney said at a press briefing yesterday. The exchanges saw a surge of interested consumers right before the deadline, with "people lining up around the block" and 2.9 million visits to HealthCare.gov this past weekend, he said.
Earlier this month, Avalere released an analysis estimating only 5.4 million would sign up for health plans through the exchanges by the end of the 2014 open enrollment period.
However, this week, USA Today reported Avalere CEO Dan Mendelson said his company had changed its estimate based on marketing efforts by federal officials and advocacy groups — such as President Obama's plug for HealthCare.gov on the popular FunnyorDie.com webseries "Between Two Ferns" — and a surge of visitors to HealthCare.gov.
Open enrollment for 2014 ended yesterday, although the Obama administration recently announced it will extend the deadline for certain people who can demonstrate they weren't able to get health insurance because of errors on the part of HHS or HealthCare.gov.
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