Week 1: Biggest Start to Open Enrollment Ever

Big news coming from CMS today — the start of Open Enrollment this year is the biggest ever with total daily sign-ups up 79% compared to similar period last year. With more people signing up, more returning consumers, more new consumers, more people visiting HealthCare.gov and more people calling the call center than in the previous few years.

Important to note: The data CMS released today is for just 4 days of enrollment this year compared to 7 days for OE3 and 12 days for OE4. See the chart below for a daily comparison.

Here is a look at what the start of open enrollment means:

On average, nearly twice as many people signed up each day as they did during the two previous years. It’s not just people returning to re-enroll, there are more new people signing up for coverage. This is a great start to open enrollment and is further evidence that people want health insurance and that they’re finding coverage they can afford.

The administration has caused a lot of anxiety for people over the last year when it comes to health care but there’s also been a more in depth conversation about what Obamacare really is about. So when most people logged onto HealthCare.gov they found plans that are more affordable than they expected.

Financial help is making plans cheaper than ever for HealthCare.gov consumers. Across the country, many people are finding basic bronze level plans with premiums as low as $0. There are some places where people can even find silver or gold plans that cover more of someone’s out of pocket costs for ZERO dollars. For instance, in Philadelphia, a 55 year old couple making $40,000 a year can find a gold plan for zero dollars.

There’s only five weeks to go before the final deadline of December 15 and we want to keep up this momentum, so we’ve got a lot of work to do to enroll even more people.

If the administration were doing everything they could to help people enroll, instead of undermining the law every chance they get, imagine how many more people would be signing up right now.

Week 1: OE3 — OE5