The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) said Friday that, of the 16.6 million signees this year, 2 million were new signups.
“We are on track for a record high number of plan selections for this year’s Open Enrollment,” the agency said.
“The record-breaking enrollment in Marketplace coverage speaks volumes about the critical need for health care coverage,” CMS Administrator Chiquita Brooks-LaSure said in a statement.
ObamaCare enrollment has hit record highs in every year of the Biden administration, after falling under the Trump administration. The newest numbers come after CMS extended open enrollment by three days amid lagging sign ups.
Enrollment tends to surge in the final days of signups as people wait until the last minute to sign up.
“Like so many of us, Marketplace enrollees can be procrastinators,” Cynthia Cox, vice president and director of the ACA program at KFF said in an email. “It’s also common for existing enrollees to passively renew their coverage by being automatically reenrolled into the same or similar plan as the previous year.”
Signups for health insurance that begins in February will continue through Jan. 15.
Last year, 21.3 million people signed up for insurance through the federal and state-based exchanges, an increase of 5 million over the previous year’s numbers.
The expanded ACA subsidies have been credited with helping boost signups. Those subsidies are scheduled to expire at the end of 2025. With Republicans set to control a trifecta of power in the federal government next year, it seems unlikely they will be extended or made permanent as the Biden administration has called for.
