4.24 Million Americans Enrolled in ACA Plans, only 1 in 4 are Young

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) this week finally released its official report on health insurance signups for February. In total, roughly 943K Americans enrolled in health plans through the Affordable Care Act (ACA) last month, thus bringing the cumulative sum to 4.24 million for the first 5 months:

This is the second month of declining enrollments in a row for Obamacare and well-below the 1.27 million people that were expected to sign up for coverage based on estimates from a September Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) memo.

Further, unless another 2.8 million Americans enroll in coverage by the end of this month, the Administration will fall far short of its 7 million signups goal.

Of course the first three months of enrollment figures were significantly influenced by the various technical problems that plagued the rollout of the online exchanges but most of those problems have been resolved and the composition of signups is still not that encouraging as the Washington Examiner explains, “HHS said 1.6 million of the enrollees signed up through state-based marketplaces, with 2.6 million in federal exchanges.

Critics, though, say that the administration’s numbers don’t tell the full story and want more data on what percentage who have actually paid their first month’s premiums and how many were previously uninsured.

The figures also show a continued uphill struggle for the administration to sign up the young health consumers needed to offset older, sicker patients and keep the health law afloat.

The administration initially projected that 40 percent of sign-ups would be between the ages of 18 and 34, but the latest figures are well behind that target. Twenty-seven percent of those who signed up in February on federal marketplaces were in that demographic, matching January’s percentage and ahead of the 24 percent mark from October through December.

Overall, 25 percent are between the ages of 18 and 34, the same level reported by the administration in mid-January…”