Sign-ups for 2020 Obamacare insurance on HealthCare.gov fall to 8.3 million: CMS

[December 21, 2019]  (Reuters) - Enrollments for 2020 insurance plans, under the Affordable Care Act (ACA), on the HealthCare.gov website fell by about 200,000 from last year to 8.3 million, the U.S. government said on Friday, citing preliminary data.

The data, as of Dec. 17, includes consumers who were granted an extension because they were unable to complete the enrollment process on Dec. 15, the initial deadline for open enrollment.

These numbers are preliminary and do not represent final 2020 Exchange Open Enrollment figures, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) said.

On Monday, the CMS extended the deadline for enrollment via the website by three days to Dec. 18 after people faced technical issues during the final hours of the enrollment deadline.

Over half a million consumers signed up on Sunday, the initial deadline for open enrollment, according to the CMS.

Last year, 8.5 million people signed up for 2019 health plans, about 4% lower than the preceding year.

"Through the first six weeks of open enrollment, the comparable daily average number of plan selections was running 2.5% behind last year's pace," Evercore ISI analyst Michael Newshel said in a note earlier this week.

The CMS runs enrollment for insurance plans created by the ACA, often referred to as Obamacare, through the online marketplace HealthCare.gov for 38 states. Thirteen states, including District of Columbia, have separate state-based exchanges for enrollment with their own deadlines.

A man looks over the Affordable Care Act (commonly known as Obamacare) signup page on the HealthCare.gov website in New York in this October 2, 2013 photo illustration. REUTERS/Mike Segar

The Healthcare.gov platform accounts for 73% of national enrollment, while state-based exchanges represent 24%, according to Newshel.

"Similar to prior years, many of these states are seeing better growth than the federal platform," Newshel said on Monday, citing reports from 8 of the 13 state-based exchanges.

The ACA, often considered the signature domestic achievement of former President Barack Obama, faced fierce opposition from the Trump administration that sought to overturn it in Congress and via courts.

In October, the government said monthly premiums for an average 2020 Obamacare health insurance plan will fall by about 4% from this year.

CMS plans to release an updated snapshot during the second week of January with the final enrollment data.

(Reporting by Manojna Maddipatla in Bengaluru; Editing by Shinjini Ganguli)

[© 2019 Thomson Reuters. All rights reserved.]

Copyright 2019 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.  Thompson Reuters is solely responsible for this content.