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Preliminary enrollment numbers announced for Get Covered Illinois

Get Covered Illinois stresses education and engagement efforts as federal enrollment numbers reinforce consumer-focused strategy

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[November 15, 2013]  CHICAGO — The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services released preliminary enrollment numbers Wednesday for the federal Affordable Care Act. The figures indicate that 30,901 applications have been completed from Illinois and 1,370 people have selected a private health care plan through Get Covered Illinois in the first month of operation, starting Oct. 1.

The federal numbers also showed that 11,603 individuals have been found eligible for financial assistance and 19,447 have been preliminarily determined eligible for Medicaid through the federal Healthcare.gov website.

Illinois officials pointed to several other key indicators measuring awareness and interest in the early weeks of the Get Covered Illinois campaign, among them more than 400,000 website visits and more than 190,000 users of the screening tool determining eligibility for Medicaid or private insurance. In addition, the state's new ABE website for Medicaid has received more than 47,000 applications, which are in addition to those reported Wednesday by the federal Department of Health and Human Services. The ABE website takes its name from "application for benefits eligibility."

"When we launched Get Covered Illinois six weeks ago, we called it a process rather than an event," said Jennifer Koehler, executive director of Get Covered Illinois. "We said that our goal of creating a culture of coverage in Illinois would take months and years, not weeks. Based on the reports from our outreach team in the field and community-based partners across the state, we expected that the early enrollment numbers would be in this range."

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Get Covered Illinois officials have concentrated resources in the field, as grantee partners around the state conduct local activities designed to educate communities on the benefits of enrolling and the educational resources available to help consumers understand their options and how to shop.

"We have consistently urged Illinois residents to take their time getting educated, rather than make an impulsive decision on something as important as health care for themselves and their families," Koehler said. "When Healthcare.gov is ready to handle more users, we expect to see more website traffic to Get Covered Illinois and significant growth in our enrollment numbers."

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[Text from news release from U.S. Department of Health and Human Services]

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