U.S. marketplace health insurance sign-ups top 8.8 million

For the seventh and final sign-up week ending Dec. 15, the report said, 4.1 million people had enrolled for coverage or been automatically renewed by the government because they had Affordable Care Act health plans this year and had not selected ones for

WASHINGTON — More than 8.8 million Americans signed up for health insurance through the federal marketplace, an unexpectedly robust turnout that approaches last year’s total.

The numbers reported Thursday by President Donald Trump’s administration include an all-time high for the number of new consumers signing up in a single week — 1 million picked health plans on healthcare. gov in the final days before the Dec. 15 federal deadline.

In Arkansas, 68,642 people enrolled in non-Medicaid plans through the marketplace, down from the 70,404 who signed up during the previous enrollment period, which was twice as long as this year’s sign-up window.

The national total is roughly 95 percent of the 9.2 million people who got coverage for 2017 during a threemonth enrollment period that ended last January.

The numbers defy widespread expectations of the law’s critics, as well as supporters, that enrollment would slump sharply as the boosterism during former

President Barack Obama’s administration gave way to the aggressive opposition of Trump and congressional Republicans, who have tried all year to repeal much of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.

Seema Verma, the administrator of the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, reported the total in a Twitter post. She said her agency had done a great job to “make this the smoothest experience for consumers to date.”

A fuller report on the enrollment numbers was released two hours later. For the seventh and final sign-up week ending Dec. 15, the report said, 4.1 million people had enrolled for coverage or been automatically renewed by the government because they had Affordable Care Act health plans this year and had not selected ones for 2018.

Consumer advocates said they were pleasantly surprised to see how many people had signed up in the latest enrollment period.

The enrollment tally so far “makes it crystal clear that Americans demand and support the quality, affordable health insurance and consumer protections the ACA offers,” said Robert Restuccia, executive director of Community Catalyst, a large grass-roots health care advocacy group.

The numbers could go higher. In some states that run their own exchanges, consumers have more time to sign up. The deadline is Jan. 14 in Min- nesota, Jan. 15 in Washington state, and Jan. 31 in California and New York.

“It’s a very, very strong number,” said Joshua Peck, who was the chief marketing officer for healthcare.gov in the Obama administration. “It implies that the final week of open enrollment this year was very big.”

The latest enrollment period, which ran from Nov. 1 to Dec. 15, faced unusual challenges. Many insurers announced big rate increases for 2018. The Trump administration slashed the budget for advertising to promote enrollment and greatly reduced grants to insurance counselors, known as navigators, who help people sign up for coverage.

In the first nine months of this year, Republicans tried repeatedly to repeal the Affordable Care Act, continually criticized it and asserted that health insurance markets were collapsing. Trump highlighted increases in premiums without noting that many consumers were eligible for federal subsidies that help cover the extra cost.

For weeks, consumers have been confused about whether they would be subject to penalties for going without insurance. Congress voted this week to eliminate the no-insurance penalties, starting in 2019.

The report Thursday shows sign-ups by people in 39 states that use healthcare.gov. It does not include activity in 11 states that operate their own insurance exchanges.

In addition, people losing coverage because their insurers withdrew from the marketplace may qualify for a special enrollment period providing 60 additional days to sign up for health plans.

The new numbers could reignite the fight around the health law. The tax cut that Trump will soon sign into law repeals the Affordable Care Act’s tax penalties for most Americans who are not insured. The president said Wednesday that without the mandate, the health law is effectively repealed, a statement that is untrue given the law’s expansion of Medicaid and the continuing demand for coverage.

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., effectively pushed back on the president with a pledge to try again to repeal the law.

Information for this article was contributed by Andy Davis of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette; by Robert Pear of The New York Times; and by Amy Goldstein of The Washington Post.