CMS says 2015 health exchange demand ramping up
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(Reuters) — Nearly 7.5 million people have signed up for 2015 health plans through HealthCare.gov with demand increasing as the Feb. 15 enrollment deadline approaches, a senior U.S. health official said on Wednesday.
The two top states for sign-ups were Florida, with 1.34 million people having selected plans as of Jan. 30, and Texas, with 969,461 plans.
"As we build towards Feb. 15, we are beginning to see a ramp. We are starting to see more and more activity in the call center and more and more activity on the website," Andy Slavitt, deputy administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, said on a call with reporters.
Consumers surged to the site in December ahead of the deadline for Jan. 1 coverage, and Mr. Slavitt said the call center will be fully staffed as of Monday in anticipation of another round of latecomers. After Feb. 15, only people with certain exceptions will be eligible to buy plans.
Enrollment for individual plans, created as part of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, opened for their second year of coverage on Nov. 15.
They are sold on the government's HealthCare.gov website for 37 states. The other 13 states plus Washington D.C. run their own websites. Recent data showed that another 2.4 million people selected a plan or were automatically enrolled in those other markets. That data is through Jan. 18 for California and through Jan. 17 elsewhere.
In the first year, around 7 million people signed up for the new individual plans. So far, the combined number for 2015 is nearly 9.9 million.
The government has set a target calling for 9.1 million people to be enrolled and up to date on premium payments by the end of 2015.
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