Dive Brief:
- The Obama administration missed their ACA enrollment target for 2015 by about 3%, HHS announced last Friday.
- The ACA has faced challenges with building and maintaining enrollment ever since the 2010 federal healthcare law was enacted to offer subsidized private insurance to people without job-based insurance coverage. Critics say it will fall short of universal coverage.
- While the administration had set the goal of having 9.1 million ACA consumers by the end of 2015, about 8.8 million were signed up and paying premiums by the end of the year, according to the report. The numbers mark a drop of about 25% when compared to the 11.7 million consumers at the beginning of 2015.
Dive Insight:
Due to problems with citizenship documentation and immigration states, Friday's announcement says 500,000 people had their ACA coverage terminated. Subsidies were "adjusted" for another 1.2 million because their incomes were not fully detailed.
Some remain optimistic about the healthcare law's ability to expand access to coverage.
“At the end of 2015, about 8.8 million people had health insurance coverage through the Health Insurance Marketplaces, up from 6.3 million the year before, a nearly 40% year-over-year increase,” CEO of the Health Insurance Marketplace Kevin Counihan said in a prepared statement.
Although the average monthly premium increased by about 9%, from $364 to $396, about 12.7 million people had either selected ACA plans or were automatically re-enrolled as of January 31.
In October 2015, the administration set the goal of having at least 10 million people with effectuated enrollment at the end of this year.