Wisconsin Healthcare.gov numbers increase over last year

More Wisconsinites picked a plan in the Healthcare.gov marketplace by Monday compared to the same point last year, according to new federal figures.

Monday was the extended deadline for people to sign up for coverage that kicks off Jan. 1. As of that date, 173,755 people in Wisconsin had selected a plan through the federal marketplace, according to the latest enrollment snapshot from the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

That’s higher than the 152,819 people who had picked a plan by Dec. 19 of last year, a CMS spokeswoman said.

Neither of the figures includes the people who were or will be re-enrolled automatically in Healthcare.gov plans if they don’t opt out of that action. They also don’t account for people who pick a plan but end up not paying for their premiums and activating their coverage.

Healthcare.gov plan selections are up nationally, too, with 6.4 million picking a plan on the federal marketplace by Monday compared to 6 million last year. Those national figures only count the states using the Healthcare.gov marketplace, rather than those states that decided to set up their own enrollment websites.

Wisconsin’s enrollment growth of nearly 14 percent was higher than the national one of about 6.7 percent.

Sylvia Mathews Burwell, the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services secretary, said the numbers are “good news” and counter the headlines that predicted few people would sign up for Obamacare.

“Some of the doomsday predictions about the marketplace are not bearing out,” she said on a conference call with reporters.

Open enrollment for coverage in 2017 closes Jan. 31.

See the latest CMS fact sheet:

http://www.cms.gov/Newsroom/MediaReleaseDatabase/Fact-sheets/2016-Fact-sheets-items/2016-12-21.html?DLPage=1&DLEntries=10&DLSort=0&DLSortDir=descending

–By Polo Rocha
WisBusiness.com